It has taken a 'celebrity' (I've put it in brackets only because I'd never heard of her..) to raise awareness of the way eating disorders can affect your fertility - but it's certainly time women understood that excessive dieting can damage your chances of having a family in the future. When a woman's body weight drops too low, her periods will stop. Most women know this, but assume that their periods will return to normal once weight is regained. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case and some of those who suffer from anorexia will discover that they don't start ovulating even if they do get back to a normal weight - and medical help will be needed to give any chance of ever having a child.
It's not just anorexia that can affect fertility, but bulimia and yo-yo weight loss too. Bulimia has been linked with polycystic ovary syndrome, which often affects fertility, even in women whose weight isn't abnormally low and yo-yo dieting with rapid weight loss and gain can also play havoc with ovulation.
The obsessive nature of eating disorders means that women often consider any future health issues to be a very low priority, but perhaps education at an earlier stage about the long-term risks for fertility might be a good thing.
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