NEW YORK (AP) —
Viewers of Katie Couric's talk show were doubtless surprised on Monday
when, during the discussion of eating disorders, Couric disclosed that
she had had her own struggles with that cruel, sometimes deadly
condition.
"I wrestled with bulimia all through college and for
two years after that," she said, describing the guilt she felt at eating
a single cookie or chewing a stick of gum that wasn't sugar-free.
But
the bulk of the show was devoted to her guests, who included experts on
the subject as well as its sufferers, notably singer and new "X Factor"
judge Demi Lovato.
During the hour, Couric said little more about her experience, which she had never before made public.
"I
kind of hesitated to even bring it up," she told The Associated Press
after the taping. "But I felt that if I expect people on my show to be
honest, then, when relevant, I owe it to people watching to be honest
myself.
"I wanted to focus on my guests," she said, "while
acknowledging one of the reasons this issue is so important to me: I
went through it."
It's all part of a balance Couric is striving
for on her new syndicated daytime show, "Katie," between sharing her
experiences and turning her show into a personal confessional.
But
in an exclusive interview with the AP, Couric, 55, shared details about
the illness that first plagued her as a senior at Yorktown High School
in Arlington, Va.
It began, she said, when she learned she had been turned down by the college she most wanted to attend.
Couric was a likely candidate for an eating disorder.
"Like
a lot of young women, I was struggling with my body image," she said,
"and feeling like I wasn't good enough or attractive enough or thin
enough."
She termed her figure at the time as "curvy," and not the
cultural ideal, which she identified as "five-foot-eight and weighing
115 pounds. It can be so difficult to embrace the body that you have if
it doesn't fit with the ideal. Women get praised for being super-thin,
so you keep striving to be that way."
She said her disorder "ebbed and flowed" through the years.
"Some
periods were worse than others, when I was binging and purging a lot,"
she said. "I'd have a piece of gum that wasn't sugarless and then say,
'Oh! I've been bad,' and then feel so terrible that I would eat and
throw up. It was awful.
"But what I'm describing is something so
many people have gone through or are going through," she noted, "and
it's so damaging, both psychically and physically."
Couric
attended the University of Virginia, then landed her first job at the
ABC News bureau in Washington, D.C. And even then, she was waging a
battle with food.
With the help of a therapist, she had a grip on
her condition by her early 20s, though "it didn't mean that I didn't
still have issues and feel bad about myself."
But since then, she
said, "I've learned how to have a much healthier relationship with food,
and how to enjoy my life without obsessing about food."
She said she was glad she had shared with viewers her ordeal with bulimia, "because it's so commonplace."
And
it's not the first time Couric has let the public in on a personal
ordeal. Her audience shared her pain from the death of her husband, Jay
Monahan, of colon cancer in 1998. The tragedy led Couric, then a
co-anchor of "Today," to become an advocate for colon cancer awareness
and for colonoscopies. In 2000, she underwent a colonoscopy on the air.
"The
educational aspect far outweighed any personal embarrassment I might
have felt," she explained. "I had just lost my husband at 42 to this No.
2 cancer killer of men and women. I had a bully pulpit from which I
could implore people to take steps that could potentially save their
lives. It was a no-brainer."
In the future, viewers of "Katie" can expect her to confide in them again when it feels right.
"I
don't think there are any huge revelations about myself that need to be
shared or would be appropriate to share," she said. "But I'm trying to
strike the right balance of talking about my situation, but not focusing
on it so much that I'm being put on the couch."
___
Online:
http://www.katiecouric.com
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
This undated photo released by ABC shows host Katie Couric, left, with actress-singer and judge on the singing competition series "The X Factor," Demi Lovato during the taping of an appearance on "Katie," in New York.
