Kathleen Mead was thought of as the sour mouth of Degrassi. Melanie, her best friend called her a "prude", and Caitlin said she was "bitchy". Kathleen was conservative in her personality, so conservative that she is perceived as a prude, and an uptight, angry teenager. We find out that she is best friends with Melanie in the 1st season of Degrassi. they are very different in character. Kathleen is an A student, with a not so "perfect" life. She went through tough times in her junior high school and high school years. She is very opinionated and judgemental, so it seems as though she is a bit of a snob.

We see that her mother is an alcoholic, and her father is a workaholic. She appears to be a perfectionist with little self esteem, and with many family problems. She was anorexic in the thrid season, because food for her was the only thing that she can have control of. Her mother's alcoholism, and her father's absense from the home made her feel depressed, thus she felt that the only way she can maintain any sort of happiness is by working hard, campaigning for school president (she lost the position to Nancy Kramer), and by starving herself.

When Melanie reads her diary, we now see Kathleen's obsessive behaviour in her perfected daily food diary log. As well as being anorexic, she purges her food using laxatives and vomitting. She is a mess!

In the fourth and fifth season of Degrassi, we know that she is undergoing family therapy. She goes out with Scott, who is older than her. He seems sweet, sensitive, and a "man", than a Degrassi "boy". He ends up being possessive and verbally abusive, later resulting in him physically abusing her. He badly beats Kathleen and gets charged by her.

Kathleen breaks up with him, as she cannot take his verbal and physical abuse anymore. Melanie has always been close to her, but since high school, has become closer to Diana. Kathleen is a strong character who has faced hard years in Degrassi with her eating disorders, and her stern, unhappy personality. Kathleen seemed always in a state of dis-satisfaction.