‘RHONJ’ star Jackie Goldschneider shares details on her battle with anorexia in upcoming memoir
‘RHONJ’ star Jackie Goldschneider talks about her decade-long eating disorder in her upcoming memoir which is all set to release on Tuesday.
'Real Housewives of New Jersey' star Jackie Goldschneider, 46, is all set to release her memoir- “The Weight of Beautiful” on Tuesday, September 26, 2023. Through the memoir, she shares details on her decade-long battle with anorexia and hopes that it can be of help to those suffering from the trauma of it and how they can reach the line of victory over it.
In an interview with Page Six, she shared the inspiration behind the book saying “It all came to me in a flash.”
“Once I started that recovery process, all of these secrets felt like poison inside me. And I had to get rid of them. I was like, ‘If I put it all down in a book, I can get them out of me.’ It was therapeutic.”
“I thought I would just die with those secrets,” added Jackie. “I can’t believe that this thing that I thought would eventually kill me turned into this amazing book that will help others. I’m really proud of it.”
The book as per Jackie is a labor of love as the lawyer-turned-journalist has always dreamed of becoming an author.
Jackie's battle with anorexia
She felt tortured by her weight as an obese teen, said Jackie.
“I remember a lot of shame. People in my high school were not nice to me. I was an outsider.”
Additionally, when her family moved from Staten Island to the Garden State- she felt isolated and tried to find solace in food she remembers her mother Ann Mark provided loads of.
“My mom worked like an animal and she was not home a lot.”
“And when she was home, she would cook enormous amounts of food. She would get joy out of seeing us eat all of it,” said Jackie about her mother who ran an up-and-coming IT business in New York City.
While Jackie thought her mother constantly fed her due to malicious intent it was later revealed in a conversation with her mother that with her maternal grandparents being survivors of the Holocaust where food was scarce, her mother just wanted all her children fed and healthy.
Jackie also shared how her doctor's comment during a visit before she began college sent her into a spiral to lose weight.
In her later years, she remembers joining programs like Weight Watchers and putting herself on an “elimination” diet in 2003.
When she met her now husband Evan Goldschneider, she recalls that even though he had never mentioned her weight her desire to be thin increased tremendously.
Jackie's hopes for the book
Jackie's memoir opens with an introduction where she shares her inner turmoil on her wedding day, where she was nervous to eat cake while wearing a delicate lace gown that showed off her figure.
“If you see the way that I looked at my wedding, I can’t imagine now as a mom watching … my child look like that and knowing that nothing could stop her,” said Jackie in tears.
Jackie joined RHONJ in 2018 and remembers that since no one in her family new about her disorder, she kept it a secret from the viewers and cast as well.
In order to splurge on the “freedom meals” she would have on the show, she would actually starve herself for the rest of the week.
She mentions an episode where she fell on the floor in 2021 due to a bout of tendonitis and she decided to begin her recovery.
“I would say I’m about 80% recovered,” she said. “I still have a lot of fears around foods that I, for 20 years, labeled as ‘bad.’ I still get nervous sometimes about gaining more weight than I’ve already gained because I’m comfortable with where I’m at.”
Jackie who works at the National Eating Disorders Association hopes her book will help people see themselves in her story and gain the courage to choose recovery and health.
“It can be long, it can be hard, but you’re never too far gone and you’re definitely not alone,” she added.
