People believed that Moira was on a diet

[Bassim]

I am wondering if my sentence is grammatically correct. I am not sure if "when in reality" is correct English.

People believed Moira was on a diet, when in reality she had been eaten by an incurable illness.

 

[GoesStation]

Maybe she was wasting away with an incurable disease.

 

[Skrej]

Perhaps 'had been emaciated', if she's especially thin. Otherwise 'had been thinned' or 'had been gnawed away by' or even 'had been consumed by'.

 

[emsr2d2]

Perhaps "... when, in reality, she had an incurable wasting disease". However, that only works if she has something like CWD rather than terminal cancer (which frequently causes the sufferer to lose huge amounts of weight, particularly towards the end of their life but the weight loss is not the actual cause of death).

 

[Tdol]

she had been eaten by an incurable illness.

I would not use the past perfect because she would still have the disease because it's incurable. GoesStation's version works better.