Tracey Gold Says the 'Boys' Club' atGrowing PainsFueled Her Anorexia with Fat Jokes

Mar. 15, 2025

Tracey Gold is opening up about a painful time in her life.

In 1985, after working for years as a child actress, Gold had the biggest break of her career when she was cast onGrowing Painsas daughter Carol.Kirk Cameronplayed her brother Mike whileAlan ThickeandJoanna Kernsplayed their parents. Gold said she’d “never done comedy before” and was nervous, but the “first few years” were a “great, fun experience.” The cast, she said, was “lightning in the bottle.”

Kirk Cameron (left) and Tracey Gold in ‘Growing Pains’ in 1985.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

But over time, the writing became “edgier.” “Unfortunately, I think in that time, it became at my expense,” she said. “They started to have Mike Seaver make fat jokes about Carol Seaver.”

Gold said, “One thing you have to know about being a child actor … you have to be the best person on that set.” Adults might laugh and forget their lines, but “you as a child actor, you need to get there. You need to know your lines. You shut your mouth, and you do your job.”

So when the fat jokes started, Gold said she had “no voice,” but she was able to “brush it off.” But during one summer break from the series, she gained weight. “And then the jokes accelerated when I came back, and became meaner,” she said.

Gold finally “tried to find [her voice]” and went to speak to the “intimidating writers.” She told them, “Can we negotiate? It hurts my feelings.” But Gold was the oldest of five girls, and the writers would “tell her” that, “You don’t have any brothers, so you don’t know what this is like. This is what brothers and sisters do to each other.” They also said they weren’t really calling her fat because, “If it was true, we couldn’t say it.”

Tracey Gold in ‘Growing Pains’ in 1985.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty

But Gold still felt uncomfortable. “You’re not talking just about Carol anymore. You’re talking about me, Tracey Gold. And now I have to be in front of an audience that’s laughing at me and my body and my weight, and it became tough,” she said.

Then, Gold’s dad, who was also her agent, was told that the show wanted her to lose weight. She ended up at a doctor who put her on a dangerous 500-calories-a-day diet.

The cast of ‘Growing Pains’ in 1987. From left: Tracey Gold, Alan Thicke, Jeremy Miller, Joanna Kerns and Kirk Cameron.ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty

ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty

She didn’t ask for help in part, because the set had an “element of misogyny to it,” she said. The producers were always bringing in “the beautiful actress of the week,” who was just a few years older than her, and “sexualizing her.”

“Being a child actor for so long, it was so ingrained in me that what all these producers say to me has to be true. And you listen to them, and their opinion is what matters,” she said.

Eventually, the producers told her she needed to gain weight, but she couldn’t.Growing Painswas canceled in 1992 while she was in “the depth of my anorexia,” and Gold ended up in inpatient treatment. In 1992, she appearedon the cover of PEOPLEtalking about her eating disorder journey.

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On the podcast, she shared that she was “very proud” of coming out about her anorexia in the magazine. “After that, all of a sudden, my voice with the eating disorder became more powerful,” she said. She alsoappeared on a 1994 cover.

“I was told to keep your mouth shut and be a good girl on a set,” Gold said. “But finding my voice with the anorexia was the really big thing.” She wanted people to know that it’s not about “vanity,” but is a “real disease.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, please go toNationalEatingDisorders.org.

source: people.com