Audrey Hepburn's Son Reveal Reasons For His Late Mum's Slim Physique

When you think of Audrey Hepburn, what image comes to mind? Her classy demeanour, elegance or her slender physique? Her son Luca Dotti revealed in an interview with People Magazine, giving excerpts from his new book, "  Audrey at Home: Memories of My Mother's Kitchen" Luca gave a narrative of how food rationing during the war affected his late mother's health, he said...

"from the time she was 9 to 16, during World War II, she was extremely malnourished. The time she most needed nourishment, she didn't have enough food. When the Nazis locked down Holland in 1944, they called it the Winter of Hunger and my mom didn't have enough to eat. Almost to the point of her body failing."

At the time, the future star survived primarily on the leafy green vegetable endive, tulip bulbs that she dug out of the ground, and water. She sometimes felt too weak to stand up, Dotti whose father is Hepburn's late second husband, Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti — recalls.

"She would spend entire days in bed with a book, thus hoping to expel from her mind obsessive thoughts about food. At the end of the war, the 16-year-old Hepburn's 5-foot-6-inch frame weighed just 88 pounds."

"She suffered from asthma, jaundice, and other illnesses caused by malnutrition, including acute anemia and a serious form of edema which Mum explained like this: 'It begins with your feet and when it reaches your heart, you die. With me, it was above the ankles when I was liberated.'"

 Source: People Magazine