Katie Couric Opened Up About Why She Avoids the Scale — Even at the Doctor’s Office

Former Today Show anchor Katie Couric has interviewed every celebrity and high-profile person under the sun. But now with her new memoir Going There coming out on October 26, the broadcast journalist is the one in the hot seat.

In addition to talking about her time on The Today Show and working in the business, she’s also opened up about her struggles with bulimia in her late teens and early twenties, as well as what finally caused her to start healing. “I think there was an aspect of perfectionism and high achieving that was very much a part of our family and that contributed to my discontent about my body,” Couric recently reflected. “There was so much pressure on women, and dieting was so much a part of the culture. Having older sisters and watching them kind of subsist on Tab and cottage cheese. I remember after college I said, ‘I’ve lost 10 pounds,’ and my sister said, ‘Keep going!'”

When she was in her mid-twenties in the early 1980s, Couric began to grasp how harmful her behaviors were and was particularly rocked by the death of singer Karen Carpenter, who passed away in 1983 at the age of 32 from complications of anorexia. After years of working on herself, she said she’s found more balance as an adult. “Food still plays a slightly outsized role in my consciousness, but not nearly as much as it did,” she explained.

One of her methods for not obsessing about her weight too much: She avoids the scale entirely. “I haven’t gotten on a scale in five years,” she said. “And when I go to the doctor, I weigh myself backwards — I look out. Sometimes I flat-out refuse. I don’t want it to ruin my day.”

And while the anchor does eat healthy in her daily life, she still indulges from time to time. “I have a weakness for Tate’s Chocolate Chip Cookies,” she noted.