Karen Carpenter And The "Body Image" Myth

Even those people who have never heard a Carpenters song - though I would argue that everybody has, they just may not know it - know that Karen Carpenter suffered from Anorexia Nervosa and that the disorder contributed to her death (technically speaking, she died from a heart attack combined with ipecac poisoning.) She is the "poster woman" for the disease. Most casual observers, and many diehard fans, believe that she had a lifelong problem with her weight. That she was fat, or at the very least, overweight. That she dieted constantly, and was obsessed with "being fat." It doesn't help matters that the 1989 tv movie "The Karen Carpenter Story"- a hideous piece of junk rife with half-truths and outright lies, heavily censored by Big Brother Richard and their mother Agnes - has a scene where a young Karen, reading a review of an early Carpenters performance, sees the words " his chubby sister." This supposedly set her on the path to self-destruction. Which may be possible. Had this incident actually occurred.
But it didn't. "The chubby article," as serious Carpenters fans refer to it, never happened. Randy Schmidt, author of "Little Girl Blue," the (so far) definitive Karen Carpenter biography, and himself a serious Karen fan, has debunked this myth. He did a great amount of research, conducted interviews with dozens of Karen's close friends, acquaintances, and peers. No such story ever appeared. I have conducted hours of my own research, searching through Google archives to find one mention of this story. Nothing. I checked for other articles which may have described Karen Carpenter as "fat," "chubby," "chunky," or "in need of dropping a few pounds."
Nothing. On the contrary, what I DID discover were numerous articles, reviews, and stories which described Karen Carpenter as "foxy," "pretty," "lovely," and "cute." All talked about her voice. Many paid tribute to her prowess as a drummer. A lot of the stories were pop star fluff, of course, describing Karen's "idyllic home life" and talking about her hobbies and future marriage plans. Typical stuff of the day. But not one ever had a mention of her "weight problem."
Not. One.
Fact: Karen Carpenter went on The Stillman Water diet at the age of sixteen. At 5'4", the tomboy Karen weighed 140 pounds. She lost twenty pounds on the diet (done with the consult of a doctor, by the way) and she maintained a weight of 120 lbs. until the end of 1974, when she started to lose weight in a serious, and eventually deadly manner.
The same weight. For nearly eight years. I can't help but gather from this fact that Karen had no serious image or weight issues during this significant chunk of her life.
Fact: Karen Carpenter HATED the Stillman diet. She said this in several interviews in the '70s. She said this long before the Anorexia kicked in, when her words could not be considered a form of denial over her disorder. She hated that she couldn't eat hamburgers and onion rings with the rest of the band.
Fact: Author Schmidt, during the course of his research for "Little Girl Blue," interviewed many of Karen's elementary and high school friends. Not one of them said that they had ever witnessed Karen having any sort of problem with her weight or with eating. All expressed shock that she could become anorectic. Not a single one of her friends, friends to whom she maintained a closeness all of her life, even after she became a worldwide superstar, not a single one of these friends said anything along the lines of "yeah, I kind of saw it coming. She was always dieting and would pick at her food."
Not one.
Fact: Dozens of articles were written about Karen Carpenter in the early part of the '70s. She was everywhere, a sensation. The equivalent to Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry today (though of a completely different caliber of talent.) She was always talking. Not until 1973 did she ever allude to any weight issues. Prior to that time, she spoke of singing, drumming, her family, cooking (she was a gourmet chef, ironically), baseball, and her hopes for the future, amongst other more fluffy subject matter. Her weight, or a desire to lose weight? Never mentioned. Not once.

This does not sound like a woman with a "lifelong" body image issue to me.
Consider: Karen passed away at age thirty two. She began displaying symptoms of eating difficulties at age twenty five. In between, there was The Stillman Diet at age sixteen. By my math, this means that she was seriously ill and losing weight for the last seven or so years of her life. Considering further that she actually made a recovery at age twenty six from her first serious weight loss (not Anorexia, but that will be a future post)we now have six years.
Six years. Out of a life span of thirty two. While certainly a long time to be fighting a sickness, it hardly qualifies as a "lifelong problem."
Many, including poncy psychologists with little or no knowledge of Karen's history, have attributed her being a drummer to the fact that she used the kit to "hide" her body behind. On the surface, this makes perfect sense: a chubby girl with an image problem hiding behind a massive drum set. Until one researches, and discovers that Karen Carpenter LOVED the drums; that she, as I wrote in my first entry, considered herself to be a drummer who happened to sing. She began playing around on the drums at the age of thirteen, following in the shadow of brother Richard. She also wanted an excuse to get out of gym class! She soon became a serious student of drumming, practicing and studying every spare moment that she had. She loved the drums. It was only after much urging from her brother, who told her that "nobody could see her and she needed to be out front," that she finally, reluctantly, gave them up. But she wasn't happy about it and was never the same afterwards. There are ample videos on You Tube showing a laughing and joyful Karen jamming away on the drums. The expression on her face is one of joy, not fearful hiding.
As to Karen's belief in her appearance, well, that's open to interpretation. But in my world, a woman with the severe body image issues she is supposed to have had would not wear a bikini. Would not wear a short skirt with white gogo boots (see "Jerry Dunphy Interviews The Carpenters" and "Carpenters: Battle Of The Bands.") Would not wear a curve hugging, shoulderless dress (see "Carpenters Holland 1974.") She was a beautiful and often sexy woman, and pictures and videos back this up. Throw in her flirtatious manner and the fact that almost every man whom she dated, and many whom she did not, fell head over heels in love with her.
There remains ignorance about Anorexia. It's supposed to be a disease about body image, about sufferers seeing themselves as fat, even when they are skeletal. And in some cases, this is most likely true. But it's a disease, and like any disease, its causes and effects are different. It is a deep and complicated disorder, and its sufferers are often deep and complicated persons. Karen Carpenter was certainly the latter. She had so many layers, and to say that her anorexia stemmed solely, or even primarily, from a desire to "be thin" is to do her a great disservice. In my ideal world, casual and serious Karen fans alike would stop taking things as the gospel truth, would look beyond the diets and the words of her brother, and LOOK, closely LOOK, at so many of the pictures and videos which exist. Would dismiss the tv movie as so much Hollywood exploitation. Would research and read. Analyze. Some do these things, of course. But too many do not.