The Skinny Star, Julie Bowen Struggled With An Eating Disorder As A Teenager

Julie Bowen reflected upon how she struggled with an eating disorder during her childhood. The Modern Family fame star opened up about the struggles on The Tamron Hall Show(1). She spoke about how and what triggered the condition. 52-year-old Bowen started a podcast during the Covid-19 named ‘Quitters’, a podcast co-hosted by herself with Chad Sanders who is an author and podcaster. They discuss incidents that people have left behind to move up. 

Julie Bowen had one-to-one heart conversations with guests from all paths of their life and got deeper into the nitty gritty of their failures in the podcast. The podcast focuses on open and authentic conversations about life. It’s in one of her first episodes where Julie Bowen initially talked about the trauma she had to experience from an eating disorder(2). She also exposed the unspoken quits of her life and her struggle with dysmorphia. Dysmorphia is the deformity of a particular body part.

Julie Bowen And Her Struggles

Bowen is a mom to three sons. She told the host of the show that one of her sons is a lot like her trying to be inside the bubble and being the perfect son. Julie got divorced in the year 2018 and she and her ex-husband Scott Phillips share the custody of their sons, Oliver who is 15 years old, and twins John and Gustav who are 13-year-olds. 

In the show, Bowen shares her thought process she had when she was a child. During her teenage years, she interpreted that being messy or making mistakes as a symbol of weakness. She had this feeling that she was too much that she couldn’t contain herself. Bowen thought that one has to stay within the lines to be good. Going out of the way and breaking stereotyped notions were considered as a bad girl attitude. It was her attitude throughout and as she recalled she told the host that it’s not at all fun to live that way. It was unknown to her, how to feel good about herself.  

Bowen spoke about the hormonal changes and hurdles that come along when one reaches puberty. She didn’t like that feeling of change and didn’t know how to embrace these changes and consider it normal. When she was growing up no one particularly made her aware about these changes or talked about such topics as it was termed to be ‘dirty’. And as she starved she was numb throughout which was developed as a coping mechanism. Though it felt amazing to her she called it ‘unhealthy’.

The two-time Emmy winner recalled days when she was body shamed tremendously, just months after delivering her twins. The star was in Hawaii for the Modern Family shoot. At that time she was working and breastfeeding. She was with her husband and was enjoying sunny beach days wearing a bikini. Suddenly, the paparazzi was near our room and commented in a really rude manner.

Questions like ‘What is wrong with her? This is disgusting.’ They pointed at her belly and her boobs and called it nasty. She felt like she had made a terrible mistake and the paparazzi had no clue regarding what her body did. The transformations she had to go through to bring two lives onto earth. But she added that she was grateful and called herself a little lucky to get some recognition before the era of smartphones. 

About Julie Bowen 

Julie Bowen is a well known American actress from Maryland. She graduated from Brown University. She rose to fame for her character ‘Claire Dunphy’ in the ABC sitcom Modern Family. The show ran for over a decade. For the same performance, she was nominated six times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She won the award in 2011 and 2012 being a two time Emmy winner. 

She debuted in the soap opera Loving in 1992. And post that she appeared in many films but she garnered attention for her acting role as a high school English teacher in Ed, a television series. Then she was with the sitcom Modern family. After that, in 2021 she started a production company, Bowen & Sons. In the same year made her very first deal with Universal Television. 

Despite her eating disorder, she suffered from cardiovascular condition bradycardia, which made her heart rate below the normal. For which she had a pacemaker in her early twenties. She spoke about these and all her struggles, emotionally and physically in her podcast episode. She is also known for her witty and sarcastic way of talking.