This '80s Child Star Was Mocked, Which Led Her to Lose Weight & Struggle With Anorexia — Her Story

She carefully hid her shrinking frame beneath oversized clothes while cameras kept rolling. By the time she returned for her show’s final episode, she couldn't bring herself to eat even one slice of pizza on set.

She started working in television before grade school and gained national recognition by her mid-teens. Her role on a long-running primetime sitcom made her widely recognizable. Publicly, she maintained a composed and consistent image. Privately, she was battling a recurring health issue.

A comment during a casting meeting marked the point when old habits returned. What followed included a medically supervised diet, rapid weight loss, and a prolonged period of concealment. By the time her condition became apparent to those around her, it had already escalated.

Born on May 16, 1969, in New York City, she was raised in Southern California as the oldest daughter in a family immersed in the entertainment industry. Her father, Harry, ran a Hollywood talent agency, and her mother, Bonnie, was a former New York advertising executive who once hosted a radio show in Montana.

She began acting at the age of 4, starting with television commercials. At 7, she landed her first major role playing young Missy Ann in the ABC mini-series "Roots," which aired in 1977. From there, she accumulated numerous television movie credits, expanding her career to include feature films and stage work.

In 1985, she joined the cast of the ABC sitcom "Growing Pains," where she portrayed Carol Seaver, the Seaver family's middle child. The show quickly became a primetime hit, and for the next seven years, she was a central figure in one of the decade's most-watched family sitcoms.

Her character, known for being bookish and level-headed, made her instantly recognizable to millions of viewers. The series ran until 1992, and she remained a regular throughout its seven-season run. But before joining the cast, she had already experienced the first signs of a struggle that would resurface years later.

She was just 12 when her pediatrician discovered she was struggling with anorexia. She received four months of psychiatric treatment and recovered. After that, she resumed normal eating habits and continued acting. The condition remained in remission during the early years of her role on "Growing Pains."

By her late teens, she appeared to be thriving—professionally secure, personally stable, and still working steadily on "Growing Pains." But at 19, the underlying issue that had emerged years earlier began to surface again. At the time, she weighed 133 pounds when a casting agent made fun of her appearance.

The comment stayed with her. "If I were a different person, it probably would have rolled off my back," she later said. "But I have the kind of personality where I will let those kinds of comments affect me." Acting on her doctor's advice, she consulted with a well-known endocrinologist.

He recommended a goal weight of 113 pounds and prescribed a 500-calorie-a-day diet. "He taught me how to basically starve myself, even knowing I had a past history of anorexia, so I don't have any respect for him," she said. Within two months, she had dropped 20 pounds and reached her target weight.

The attention she received after losing weight reinforced the behavior. She remembered, "All of a sudden, I wasn't awkward Tracey. People were saying I was pretty. I fell right into the pitfall of 'I can't lose this constant praise.'" Although she had reached her goal weight, she didn't stop there.

Over the months that followed, her weight dropped further—to 100 pounds, then 95, and finally 90. At just 5'3", the change was severe, but it remained mostly hidden from the public and even her own family. She had become skilled at masking the extent of her illness. Baggy sweaters helped conceal her shrinking frame.

She also learned how to appear as if she was eating when she wasn't. On the set of "Growing Pains," she carried a quart of diet Coke everywhere. Her eating patterns were rigid and obsessive. She would often cut food into tiny pieces to make it look like she had eaten more than she had.

She would also claim she had already eaten, either before arriving or in her dressing room. Her eating routine followed a fixed structure. She starved herself during the day and had the same dinner every night: pasta with chicken and broccoli, served in the same bowl, at the same time, and reheated several times.

That was the only meal she allowed herself. Despite her declining health, she continued filming the show and appeared outwardly upbeat. Her TV dad, Alan Thicke, remembered her seeming "pleasant and cheerful—a rock." But in reality, her condition was worsening.

On November 10, 1991—her mother Bonnie's 45th birthday—the situation could no longer be hidden. That day, Bonnie visited the set of "Growing Pains." In her daughter's dressing room, she caught a glimpse that would haunt her. As the young actress changed out of her street clothes, Bonnie saw the full extent of her condition.

Although he daughter was careful to cover herself, Bonnie caught a glimpse of her body and was shocked by how thin she had become. "I saw it and almost fainted," said Bonnie. At that point, her daughter weighed 90 pounds and appeared skeletal.

"We both stood there crying," she recalled. "She said, 'Mommy, Mommy, I'm going to get better.' I said, 'Tracey, you've got to get better, because I'm not going to lose you.'" The actress had been battling anorexia in secret for three years, despite ongoing therapy.

Her weight had been declining steadily since 1989. Her family, even with their close involvement in her life and career, hadn't realized how bad things had become. "That's why," Bonnie explained, "I went full-tilt in the dressing room. I was in total shock and fear."

But even after the mother-and-daughter talk, her condition continued to deteriorate. Her father, Harry, recalled, "I yelled and screamed. I begged. I'd say, 'What are you doing to yourself?' But she was working with a psychiatrist at the time, so you kind of give up. You feel at such a loss. You want to say, 'Eat, just eat.'"

In December 1991, during the holiday break, she developed bronchitis. When filming resumed, she returned to the set noticeably thinner. Concerned about her appearance and overall health, the show's producers placed her on indefinite leave.

Her character was written off temporarily, with an explanation that she had gone to London to study rare books at the British Museum. "If I had my wish," she said, "I would like to be back for the last episode of the season." She left the set on January 7, 1992.

Five days later, she entered a hospital in Los Angeles that focused on treating eating disorders. She stayed for a brief period before deciding to leave on her own. "Everybody wanted me to stay there," she stated, "but that hospital was not the right place for me."

After being discharged, she took a cab straight to her parents' home. Her mother recalled feeling relieved and frightened at the same time when she arrived. She soon began treatment on her own terms. With the help of a private nutritionist and a UCLA therapist who specialized in eating disorders, she started to stabilize.

"I'm healthy enough to know that I don't want to lose any more. I am fighting it, but it's hard. It consumes my every thought," she admitted at the time. Her mother remained vigilant. "I go over to her house, and I check on her every single night to make sure she's still breathing," Bonnie said.

The support didn’t stop at home. Her on-screen family from "Growing Pains" also stepped in. Joanna Kerns, who played her television mother, had several serious talks with her. "I urged her to get help," Joanna said. "I told her it looked like she was going too far with the weight thing."

Her condition affected more than her health. It also disrupted her work. She missed several episodes during the seventh and final season of "Growing Pains." Though she returned for the series finale, the experience was bittersweet.

In the last scene, the cast sat together in the empty Seaver living room, eating pizza—a moment she found difficult to participate in. She was still unable to eat certain foods. "I couldn't eat pizza," she recalled. "So I fake-eat, and I very badly fake-eat it. Where did my acting skills go in that last scene? I'm horrible. I'm like—'Ah! I forgot how to hold a piece of pizza.' It was ridiculous."

Looking back, she described that time as especially difficult. "For me, I don't like endings. I don't like change," she said. "It goes all into my eating-disorder personality, and so leaving 'Growing Pains' was hard in itself. But it was also hard to end on that note—being so sick and fragile, and with that kind of heaviness that was around me at that point."

Despite everything, she maintained strong ties with her castmates. "We don't talk every day, but when we get together, it's like we never got out of sync. We're family. We really are," she said. "It's such an amazing thing that I got to do. It was a great experience. I loved everybody."

In 1992, at age 22, Tracey Gold chose to speak publicly about the condition that almost took her life. Her story appeared on the cover of People magazine, where she opened up about her eating disorder and her decision to step away from the spotlight to focus on her health.

The publicity was overwhelming, with tabloids spreading exaggerated claims, but she made it clear that the interview was her way to speak for herself. Following her departure from "Growing Pains," she took a year off from acting to prioritize recovery.

On October 8, 1994, she married Roby Marshall, who was her boyfriend at the time of the People interview, and had supported her during the struggle with anorexia. They had met in 1990 on the set of the TV movie "Blind Faith," where he was working as a consultant and she was cast alongside Joanna.

As of May 2025, they have been together for over 30 years and have four sons. When Gold returned to acting, she left behind the image of Carol and took on more serious, adult roles. Among them was a part in the TV movie "For the Love of Nancy," which portrayed a young woman battling anorexia.

The subject matter closely mirrored her own experience. She also starred in "Stolen Innocence," playing a runaway who becomes involved with a truck driver—one of several emotionally charged roles that followed her recovery period.

In interviews at the time, Gold spoke candidly about the work it took to get to a healthier place. "It took a lot of hard work," she said. Though she had regained stability, she still approached food cautiously. "I'm a very picky eater, as you may already know," she noted during one interview, acknowledging the lingering habits from her years of struggle.

Gold's most recent screen credits were in 2016, when she took on roles in "All Hallows' Eve" and the TV movie "I Know Where Lizzie Is." In the years after her recovery, Gold has used her platform to raise awareness about eating disorders. In 2011, she hosted the reality series "Starving Secrets" on Lifetime.

The series followed women who were battling severe eating disorders and offered them treatment in exchange for allowing their stories to be documented. The show aimed to bring attention to the hidden struggles many women face. Executive producer Ted Haimes described it as a way to provide an "inside view" of a disease often kept secret.