Radio host Jenni on having op to shed 10st
BBC radio presenter Dame Jenni Murray has struggled with her weight for much of her adult life.
The presenter of Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour has had to suffer vicious taunts, including being called “fat cow” in the street many times.
Jenni, 70, said: “The taunting infuriated me and it hurt.”
Her weight has yo-yoed between 14 and 24 stones for years.
She had tried every diet – from WeightWatchers to Atkins and Dukon – but ended up putting back on all the weight and more.
At 64, the presenter avoided the scales, refusing to make connections between her weight and health issues, telling herself she was fat and happy.
In private, she feared that being fat would probably kill her before she hit 70.
She’d already had breast cancer – a disease which has been linked to obesity – and a double hip replacement.
She decided to do something about it after a walk with her dogs and grown-up son Charlie, when they saw a heavily overweight woman pass them on a mobility scooter.
Charlie told her: “Blimey, Mum, if you aren’t careful, that’ll be you before long.”
His comment prompted her to eventually shed 10 stone and stabilise her weight.
Now, she is telling her story in the book Fat Cow, Fat Chance, in which she also examines the science and psychology of size.
Fat-shamers insist that obesity is the result of lazy, greedy people with no self-control, but obesity is a disease, she said, a claim backed up by research in the book.
Jenni said: “James Corden said very openly, ‘If fat-shaming worked, there would be no fat kids in school’.”
Her mother, Win, a Yorkshirewoman who had an ethos of “eat everything on your plate” following wartime and post-war austerity, fed young Jenni large portions and then fat-shamed her when she put on weight.
She said: “I wasn’t fat when I was a kid. I wasn’t even a fat teenager. I had a big frame. But my
Mum said I looked like a baby elephant but I forgive her – she wanted me to be the best I could be
After decades of yo-yo diets Dame Jenni Murray finally dealt with her food issues and reveals in a new book how surgery changed her life By Hannah Stephenson
mother was a slim, elegant woman, never fat, although she was continuously dieting.” When Jenni returned from Hull University two stones heavier during the Easter break of her first year, after living on toast, chips and stodgy canteen food and alcohol from the student union bar, her mother told her: “You look like a baby elephant.” Jenni said: “I’d gone from a pretty regular nine and a half stones to 11 and a half and my mother was appalled.
“But I forgive her because all she really wanted was for me to be the best that I could be.”
The presenter’s weight really ballooned when she was working on Woman’s Hour and moved house with husband David and sons Ed and Charlie to the Peak District.
During the week, she lived in a basement flat in London, became depressed and started comfort eating.
Only at weekends, when she was back home with her family, did healthy eating prevail.
Jenni said: “I bought takeaways, pre-prepared food from the
supermarket, drank far too much wine, empty calories.
“I wasn’t doing much exercise because I would go to work very early. I’d have two lattes (not skinny ones), a couple of croissants and we’d finish the programme before lunch, either go to the canteen and eat chips or the local Turkish restaurant for pitta bread, hummus and wine.
“It was the evenings when I would comfort eat.
“We don’t necessarily eat when we’re hungry and that’s the crucial thing. That line has hung over my head as far back as I can remember – listen to your appetite.
“It was the one subject in which
I appear to be profoundly deaf. I can’t hear my stomach. I just eat because it’s something to do.”
She became so low that on one occasion she called the Samaritans.
Jenni said: “I was so down one night, stuck in that basement flat.
“I was worried about the kids, about home, about the husband and the programme the next day, probably after having eaten a pizza and a bar of chocolate.
“I don’t even really like chocolate. I just needed to talk to somebody.
“The young man was so sweet, he listened and answered and asked me questions.”
She went on to have therapy, which didn’t work for her, as well as trying all sorts of diets, unsuccessfully.
In the end, she chose surgery after her new GP told her frankly that she needed to address her weight.
She had colleagues who’d had gastric bands, including TV and radio presenters Vanessa Feltz and Fern Britton, but Jenni remained cautious, having heard horror stories.
Finally, a guest surgeon talking about obesity in children on her show took her through the options (off air) and she chose to have a “sleeve gastrectomy”, an irreversible procedure in which a large part of the stomach is removed, so you can’t eat as much as you did and you feel fuller quicker. It cost her £11,000.
She said: “As so much of the stomach has been removed, so the hunger hormones are also removed. I don’t feel hungry like I used to.”
She had the operation in June 2015, aged 65.
Jenni said: “I was scared witless. I’d had my breast removed, I’d had my hips completely changed.
“I was thinking, ‘Come on, do you really want to go into another operating theatre and never be quite sure if you’re ever going to come out again?’
“As for my family, there were a lot of, ‘Are you sures?’ But I had researched it properly and was convinced it was the right thing to do.”
The recovery was less painful than she expected. She returned to work two weeks later and she got back to eating normally in eight weeks.
She said: “I went from 24st to 14.” As she explains in her book, that included eight stone in less than a year.
Today, she has her meals on a small plate and when she goes out to dinner, she’ll order two starters instead of a main - but no bread and generally no pudding.
Her energy levels and her mobility have been transformed and five years on, her weight seems to have stabilised at around 14 stones, which she said she’s happy with.
“I don’t mean to insult or upset Nigel Lawson in any way but when he went on his diet he lost more than half his body weight and his face just crumbled.
“I thought, ‘Hang on, I’m 65, do I really want to lose this nice skin that’s not wrinkled?’ So I didn’t try to lose any more weight. If I fancy a chocolate eclair, I’ll have one.”
She wouldn’t want any more surgery to remove her loose skin.
She said: “Unless it is to save my life, I will never go under the scalpel again.”
So, how will society change its attitude to obesity?
Jenni said: “We have to get people to understand what is causing it and change the attitude that it’s their fault, they’re lazy, they’re greedy.
“It is a disease and there is treatment for it which, in the long run, ∙Fat will save the NHS a lot of money.”
Cow, Fat Chance by Jenni Murray is published by Doubleday tomorrow, priced £16.99.