In conversation with Jenni Murray
Shocked in to doing something by a comment her son made about her mobility, Jenni decided to stop hiding away her size and putting on an Oscar performance that size didn’t matter, and went in search of a solution.
Jenni shares how she finally managed to fund a solution that worked for her - the insertion of a gastric balloon (which sounds scary but apparently only takes about 15 minutes) and that more should be done via the NHS, to help provide people suffering with obesity - these types of solutions.
The journalist and broadcaster who presented BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour until last year, manages to pull off both an intimate portrayal of a women challenged by a body shape that has yoyo’d throughout her life and a very informative look at why diets don’t work.
Whilst the book is about the science and psychology of body shape it’s also an intimate perspective on the relationship we have with our bodies - the continual dieting, trying keeping weight off and people not realising that body shaming is not just incredibly cruel, but it just doesn’t work.
I love that it's a mix of very personal story that I think many of us, if not all at some point in our lives, can relate to and useful technical information about eating habits
Shocked in to doing something by a comment her son made about her mobility, Jenni decided to stop hiding away her size and putting on an Oscar performance that size didn’t matter, and went in search of a solution.
What Jenni uncovers on her journey over the years is that diets just don’t work (she’s pretty much tried them all) and losing weight is more complex than we can ever imagine. It can come down to a range of issues including - genes, environment, hormones, mental health issues, isolation, and metabolism.
And that fundamentally we need to relearn how to listen to our appetites and eat only as much as we need and ideally when we are hungry. Dieting can actually cause obesity - Traci Mann a Professor at University of Minnesota, found dieters lost weight in first 9 to 12 months but over next 2 to 5 years put it all on again (bar 2 pounds).
I realised listening to Jenni, how little I know about the real challenges of losing and keeping off weight and the causes of Obesity.
Many of us were told by our parents ‘to eat everything on our plates’ and not to waste food - and this has set up a whole mindset of continuing to eat even when our stomach is sending signals to the brain that we are full. An immediate post war diet was actually, when you look back on it, healthier for us – lots of vegetables, meat occasionally, very few snacks (if at all) and little processed foods. Fast forward to 2021 and look at the plethora of fast food outlets and processed foods and snacks available at our supermarkets.
Her advice to parents is:
· Never criticise your child’s size
· Never force food on them
· Feed them a range of foods in sensible portion
· Try not to portray sweets as treats
· Don’t pass your own anxieties on to your children
We must all feel entitled to eat and feel no fear of anything – a pleasure, not a guilty one.
As Jenni says, young women who struggle with their weight can feel like outcasts (not understood by family and friends and often body shamed by both) and this feeling is further fuelled by the never ending diet fads out there and a fashion industry who focuses on advertising ‘the perfect model’ with the perfect size.
At 64yrs old Jenni, whose weight at one point was between 22-24 stone, has finally found a comfortable weight at around 14 stone that is stable (in fact this is often called ‘the set point’ a predetermined level by a physiological feedback control mechanism, where the body is programmed to function at its best)
Her focus is on health now rather than weight and she has the knowledge and resources within to adapt her food habits as she wishes.
As her friend Susie Orbach says ‘Beauty comes in many sizes’.
Jenni says she’s not a fat activist but at the same time she never wants anyone to be ever called a ‘fat cow’ again.