Editing Growing Pains (section)

=== Gold's health issues ===
In 1988 at age 19, Gold gained some weight over the production hiatus between the show's third and fourth seasons. For Season 4, scripts called for Carol to be the brunt of fat jokes from her brothers, Mike and Ben, for many episodes in a row. By October of that year, Gold lost a total of 23&nbsp;lbs. (dropping from a weight of 133&nbsp;lbs to about 110&nbsp;lbs) after going on a medically supervised {{convert|500|Cal|kJ|adj=mid|-a-day}} diet, though scripts continued to include occasionally fat jokes made at Carol's expense. In her 2003 memoir ''Room to Grow: an Appetite for Life'', Gold revealed that she became increasingly obsessed with food and her physical appearance between 1989 and 1991, and continued to slowly and steadily lose weight.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last1=Gold |first1=Tracey |title=Room to Grow: an Appetite for Life |last2=McCarron |first2=Julie |publisher=New Millennium Press |year=2003 |author-link=Tracey Gold}}</ref>

In 1990, Gold began group therapy in an eating disorder program but only learned more ways to lose weight. Gold's body image issues were touched upon slightly in the Season 6 episode "Carol's Carnival", which features a scene in which Carol looks at herself in a carnival mirror and describes to another character the distorted image in her head. By 1991, her disorder had devolved into [[bulimia nervosa]], having lost a massive amount of weight through both self-starvation and vomiting, causing her to be admitted to a hospital for treatment in early 1992.<ref name=":2" /> Gold—who was estimated to have been near 80&nbsp;lbs. at her lowest weight—was suspended from the show following production of the Season 7 episode "Menage a Luke", due to her skeletal appearance that was fairly obvious in some scenes.{{NoteTag|"Honest Abe" and "Vicious Cycle"—which preceded "Menage a Luke" in broadcast order—were both taped after Gold went into treatment.}} Gold's absence is addressed several episodes later in "Don't Go Changin{{'"}}, which features a subplot in which Ben films a video letter for Carol, who in-canon is studying abroad in London.{{NoteTag|The "We miss you" message to Carol seen during Ben's finished video at the end of the episode later swaps the character’s name with Gold's.}} Photos of Gold's emaciated body were plastered all over tabloid magazines, and she was one of the first celebrities ever to be formally outed for anorexia. She returned for the show's final episodes ("The Wrath of Con-Ed", and the two-part finale "The Last Picture Show") in the late spring of 1992. Gold eventually recovered from her years-long struggle and starred in the 1994 made-for-TV movie ''[[For the Love of Nancy]]'', drawing on her own experiences with [[anorexia nervosa]] to portray the title character.<ref name=":2" />