Shocking selfies reveal alarming effect of eating too many carrots – woman’s face changes colour

By EMILY STEARN, SENIOR HEALTH REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE

Published: 14:13 BST, 17 April 2025 | Updated: 14:58 BST, 17 April 2025

A woman has told how she ate so many carrots she was left resembling an ‘Oompa Loompa’ as her skin glowed a bright orange hue.

The anonymous Reddit user said she would get through a ‘big bag’ of the vegetable ‘every few days’ in a bid to boost her health. 

But she became worried in December after looking at a photo of herself, noticing her skin had turned orange and assumed life-threatening jaundice, which turns skin yellow, was to blame.  

After looking up her condition online, she self-diagnosed with carotenemia — a build-up in the blood of the pigment that gives carrots their colour.

She cut her carrot intake dramatically from roughly five medium-sized carrots every day to just the occasional one.

Now, in a post liked over 84,000 times, she has shared a photograph of herself taken this month and compared it to the offending December image — noting the similarity with Roald Dahl‘s orange-faced characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

She said: ‘I was eating too many apparently. I used to eat a bowl of cottage cheese with a pile of carrots for lunch because I love them and they’re cheap. 

‘I was going through a big bag every few days.

Now, in a post liked over 84,000 times, the anonymous Reddit user has shared a photograph of herself taken this month (right) and compared it to the offending December image (left) — noting the similarity with Roald Dahl ‘s orange-faced characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

‘I freaked out when I saw the left pic because I thought it was jaundice. But no. I just love carrots too much.

‘I’m pretty short — 5 foot, 3 inches,’ she added, ‘so the Oompa Loompa comparison is perfect.’

Carrots — and other fruits, such as mangoes, apricots and pumpkins — contain a natural pigment called beta carotene.

This substance gives them their distinctive hue.

Over time, consuming excessive amounts of beta carotene can cause the skin to turn a yellow-orange colour.

Carotenemia, as it is medically known, is harmless.

But it can take several months for the skin to return to a normal colour.

The anonymous Reddit user added: ‘I’m sure there are plenty of variables that go into it — weight, height, age — and everyone’s body is different. 

Carrots — and other fruits, such as mangoes, apricots and pumpkins — contain a natural pigment called beta carotene. This substance gives them their distinctive hue

‘I’m naturally very pale, and also short and thin, so it might just have shown up easier on me.

‘I stopped [eating so many carrots] because aesthetically I didn’t want to be the only orange person in photos.

‘The left pic has my family cropped out and I’m just so distractingly orange next to all of them.’ 

Reddit users responded in shock to the thread. One wrote how he ‘didn’t know’ carrots changing the colour of the skin was ‘a thing’. 

Another, meanwhile, shared that eating heavy quantities of squash and carrots as a baby turned their nose ‘a shade of orange’.

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Shocking selfies reveal alarming effect of eating too many carrots – woman’s face changes colour

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