There has never been a specific campaign to combat anorexia nervosa, however several high-profile celebrities have suffered from the disorder and this has brought national attention to the problem. The most famous of these was Karen Carpenter of the brother/sister singing team, The Carpenters (Carpenter, 1983). Karen Carpenter died in 1983 at the age of 32 from heart failure brought on by years of fighting anorexia. Another celebrity with the disorder is Melissa DeHart, a former TV reporter who has been profiled on Entertainment Tonight (The Poster, 2003). Their stories have received the most publicity, though thousands of young women and men continue to suffer from the disorder.
Karen and Richard Carpenter, a brother/sister act, with Karen playing the drums and singing and Richard playing the piano, became one of the most popular groups of the 1970s, with such hits as "We've Only Just Begun" and "Closer To You" and "Rainy Days and Mondays" (Karen, 1983). Karen had been a little chubby as a teenager, and went on the Stillman Diet under the guidance of a doctor and lost 25 lbs (Carpenter, 1983). She was around 115 lbs in 1975 when her illness became more serious, according to her brother. She was exhausted after a tour and spent five days in a hospital for bed rest, then two months in bed at their parents' home. It was then that they first heard she had anorexia nervosa and everyone tried to encourage her to eat more.
No one knows the cause of her illness: some have tried to relate it to her brief marriage to Tom Burris, and industrialist, and a failed romance with record producer Terry Ellis, but Richard does not see a connection (Carpenter, 1983). Richard tried everything he could to encourage Karen to eat from 1975 onwards, and recalls she lived on salads, and only dry toast for breakfast. In late 1981, she realized she needed help and went to her brother. She went to New York and was seeing a therapist, but sta...