Health and appearance of Michael Jackson
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American musician and entertainer who spent nearly forty years in the public eye, from being a child star with the Jackson 5 to becoming a successful solo artist. During his career, his changing appearance, health concerns and diet have been well documented. Up until the early to mid 1980s, Jackson's natural changing appearance through puberty and age garnered little to no negative media attention. However, by the mid 1980s it was apparent that Jackson's appearance was being altered by something more than the aging process.
His skin was gradually lightening in tone, his nose and chin were narrowing, and he was losing weight. These changes would continue in a steady progression over the next twenty years. The lightened skin tone is due to the diseases vitiligo and lupus—with which Jackson was diagnosed in 1986—and the singer's personal choice to cover the blotched skin with make-up; something many sufferers do. His altered facial features are the result of cosmetic surgery; by 1990, those close to the singer say he had undergone approximately ten procedures.
Jackson and some of his other siblings state that, as adolescents, they were physically and emotionally abused by their father. Jackson rarely spoke about the abuse of his childhood, but, in several interviews during which the subject was raised, he became very emotional and admitted that he would vomit before meeting his father. In court documents, some mental health experts have expressed the opinion that Jackson was psychologically a regressed ten-year-old. Some medical professionals have also publicly stated that he suffered from body dysmorphic disorder.
Jackson's appearance would also be altered by health problems, weight loss, stress and natural aging. Jackson decided to lose weight and became a vegetarian, using the term "a dancer's body" to describe his goal. He became dependent on drugs and on one occasion he went into rehabilitation; drug use also affected his appearance. It was during periods of turmoil in Jackson's life that his weight and drug problems would resurface, often at the same time.
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