Is Jackie Goldschneider’s Anorexia Cured?

Jackie Goldschneider has revealed that she’s put on weight and is “out of the danger zone” amid her recovery from anorexia. The Real Housewives of New Jersey star has reportedly battled the eating disorder for almost two decades. 

“I’m about six or seven months really in [recovery] now,” the reality star told Page Six. “I have expanded to a team, instead of just the one therapist. So I speak to my therapist twice a week, I speak to a medical nutritionist once a week and I have a women’s wellness physician.”

“I’m learning how to eat normally and intuitively, and I’ve put on weight,” she added.

Jackie, 45, clarified that she does not know how much weight she’s gained because she’s “not allowed to get on the scale.”

The mom of four said that she’s happy to be “out of the danger zone in terms of health problems” related to the disorder. Jackie suffered from compromised organ function and “very low” blood pressure, estrogen levels and iron levels. Her heart was “not operating” at full strength, and the Bravo star was “always freezing” because she “wasn’t eating enough calories to regulate [her] temperature.”

Jackie has spoken about her struggle with the disorder since she joined the cast of RHONJ in 2018, but confessed that she tried to portray herself as fully recovered from anorexia. She explained that she did so in order to get a jump on the anticipated comments about her appearance. 

Jackie has been open about undergoing in vitro fertilization in order to conceive two sets of twins, Jonas and Adin, 13, and Alexis and Hudson, 11, with her husband, Evan Goldschneider. She explained that she couldn’t naturally conceive her children because she wasn’t eating enough food to ovulate or menstruate. Jackie revealed that she obsessed over the inevitable weight gain when she became pregnant for the first time. 

“It was very, very hard,” she admitted. 

She explained that she “went to a pregnancy nutritionist and said, ‘I know this is going to sound crazy, but please tell me what the minimum amount I have to eat is in order to have healthy babies.’”

“And I ate that exact minimum,” she recalls. “I didn’t eat one thing over that. Looking back, it’s like, how do you even do that? But it’s all mental. It’s a mental illness.”

Jackie debunked a common misconception when she pointed out that “it’s not just about being super skinny. You can be any weight and have an eating disorder.”

Jackie explained that she finally faced her issues in May 2021, after going through a phase of running with an injured hamstring. 

The Staten Island native said that as she wept from emotional and physical pain, she “sat down and really let myself for a second consider what life would be like if I did stop.”

“And I thought, ‘What if I put it out there and do it on the show?’” she recalled. “So a big part of it was to help keep me accountable, but another part of it was that eating disorders are very lonely.”

“I’m not trying to be a martyr,” she added. “I just want other people to know that you can be at your rock bottom and still come out of this, and it doesn’t take forever, and you can live a totally happy life in a fit body.”

Jackie shared that she spoke to her co-star and bestie, Margaret Josephs, before deciding to open up about her illness on the show. 

Jackie immediately got support from co-stars, Melissa Gorga and Dolores Catania, but “didn’t hear” from Teresa Giudice or Jennifer Aydin.

“It’s OK,” Jackie said. “I mean, I know what my relationship with them is, so it’s fine.”

Jackie was asked to weigh in on the most recent RHONJ episode, where Teresa commented that Margaret’s butt would “jiggle” less in a pair of her brand’s leggings. 

“I just think it’s such a shame that women do that to other women,” she said. “One of the reasons why I spiraled into this was — and I’m not putting it on other people — but some of the comments that I would get about my body never left me. … So I just think that it’s very dangerous to body-shame another woman because you never know how they’re going to take it and what they’re going to do with it.”

She replied in the affirmative when asked if she believed the comment had malicious intent. 

Jackie confirmed that she is currently “in a good place physically,” and is still working on “getting there mentally” amid her recovery.

“I can tell that I’m in a new size, which is difficult for me, but I know that it’s necessary,” she shared. “I still struggle coming to terms with living in a bigger body, not being thin anymore. I was always the fittest person in the room, and I liked that identity.”

“I’m just so happy that I finally felt confident enough with where I was in life and the things I had accomplished that I didn’t need being thin to take up so much of my identity anymore.”

The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs on Tuesdays at 9 pm, ET, on Bravo.

Stay Connected With All About The Tea: Twitter Ι Instagram Ι YouTube Ι Facebook Ι Send Us Tips