Karen Blixen - Isak Dinesen home

Question 89: Karen Blixen's "ideal weight"?

Q.  What was Karen Blixen's ideal weight? I read that it was 74 pounds.

A.   As far as I know, Karen Blixen never spoke about her "ideal weight".  If she ever thought about the subject, she is not on record as saying so.

Seventy-four pounds in an adult woman would be considered pathological. Karen Blixen did not suffer from anorexia, as the above statement implies. She had difficulty eating in the later years of her life after surgery for a stomach ulcer.  She eventually weighed seventy-four pounds only because she was very ill and dying.

Her friends relate that she suffered from hunger. She had always been interested in cooking and gourmet food, and it was agonizing not to be able to eat as she had. Jens Kruuse writes an eye-opening account of this in "Karen Blixen."

It is common to find unscientific comments about Karen Blixen's thinness, written by those who have not done careful research, or who are fascinated by anorexia.

If it sounds too strange to be true, it probably isn't. To verify your instinct, look for other statements that seem false in these articles.

Copyright © 2004 by Linda Donelson. All rights reserved