YORKSHIRE SHEPHERDESS SUFFERED EATING DISORDER AFTER MARRIAGE BROKE DOWN
The Yorkshire Shepherdess has revealed that she suffered an eating disorder after her marriage broke down.
Amanda Owen, who stars in Channel 5’s fly-on-the-wall documentary Our Yorkshire Farm, separated from Clive Owen, her husband of 22 years, in 2022.
The former couple now live separately but continue to work their isolated Yorkshire Dales farm together and have filmed a new television programme, Our Farm Next Door.
The 51-year-old mother of nine said that she suffered an eating disorder after the marriage collapsed, and that online trolls mocked her appearance after she lost weight.
“Physical and mental health are intertwined and anxiety, depression, paranoia, agoraphobia and an eating disorder were all smooshed into one,” she told the Daily Mail.
‘Photos of me as stressed, fat, tired Amanda’
Ms Owen added: “I always had issues with eating and food and it gets amplified when you’ve had nine pregnancies. There are photos of me as thin Amanda, stressed, fat, tired Amanda.
“You can find a picture to suit any situation. And the media intrusion got to me. I had no control; I didn’t know what would pop up next and it made me mentally ill and physically sick.
“The children witnessed it all. It has taught them resilience. It’s a weird sort of double life. You have moments of extreme strength, of feeling belligerent and spiky, then times when you feel the rug has been pulled from under you.
“I was back and forth to the hospital, to the doctors; it was a critical time and we were also doing the renovation at Anty John’s [a property that features in Our Farm Next Door].”
Mr Owen said it was “the scariest time” and that there were nights when he feared he would not see Amanda the next morning.
“I had a swallowing issue,” Ms Owen said. “One Valentine’s night I went outside in the dark and something happened in my throat and I was throwing up blood. It was awful. The eating disorder has always bubbled up beneath the surface but I never imagined it would happen to that degree.
“Clive, in his basic, simplistic way said: ‘Why don’t you just eat summat?’ There were a couple of times when I went out gathering [sheep] and I just flaked out. They had to come and get me. And Clive said to me in a moment of vulnerability: ‘I know you’ll always have my back and you can always rely on me’.”
‘Out of the woods now’
Ms Owen said she was now well again after seeking medical help.
“I’m out of the woods now,” she said. “I’ve turned a corner. You have your moments, your relapses and wobbles, but I’m here to tell the tale and I almost feel better armed with the awareness I have of eating disorders now.”
Last year she said family farms would face “hard times” because of the Government’s inheritance tax raid.
2025-12-12T10:00:35Z
