Growing Pains is an American television sitcom that aired on ABC from September 24, 1985, to April 25, 1992, and was created by Neal Marlens. The show lasted seven seasons and had 166 episodes. The Seaver family, which includes psychiatrist and father Jason, journalist and mother Maggie, and their children Mike, Carol, and Ben, were the focus of the series.
Tracey Gold had to miss a few programmes due to health problems. She was privately suffering from the eating disorder anorexia, which is marked by body dysmorphia and purposeful self-starvation, during her time on Growing Pains.
Her weight went from 133 to a perilously low 79 pounds. Joanna Kerns, Gold’s TV mother, noticed and acted quickly, requesting that Gold be hospitalised by the show’s producers.
Kerns explained, “I just saw her wasting away, and she was getting fuzzy, and she couldn’t remember lines, and I was just concerned it was far further than any of us realised.”
In 1992, she returned to film the final scene of the series finale. Gold eventually overcame her years of struggle and acted in the 1994 television film For the Love of Nancy, in which she drew on her own anorexia nervosa experiences to play the lead character.