I had a healthy diet. My husband ate junk. So why did I get cancer, asks Sian
FORMER BBC Breakfast presenter Sian Williams has said we should stop ‘persecuting’ ourselves about our diet and weight and simply enjoy food.
The 52-year-old had sworn that after years of watching her mother struggle against the purgatory of diets, she would never follow in her footsteps.
But this week the journalist admitted she eventually fell into the trap of following eating fads.
And it took her battle with breast cancer, which claimed the lives of her aunt and mother, to re-think her relationship with food.
Her TV producer husband Paul Woolwich, 64, had always shunned all the doctors’ advice on food but it was she who got cancer, she said.
Miss Williams, who presented BBC Breakfast for 11 years, was diagnosed a week after her 50th birthday, in 2014, and underwent a double mastectomy. But it took her oncologist telling her a glass of red wine would not kill her before she would indulge. Diets are not just about the ‘pounds we lose’ but also the impact food has on mental health, she added.
Writing in the Radio Times, she said: ‘The very word reeks of a punishment regime where pleasure doesn’t get a look in. Having spent my life swearing never to go on a diet, I ended up on one, because I’d cut out so many food groups. Not in a bid to lose weight, but to try to be “healthier”.
‘My husband? Well, I’ve just asked him what he had for lunch yesterday and he said, “Two doughnuts,” which just about sums up his attitude to healthy eating. I was all about green tea, vegetables and salmon – his diet seemed full of wine, meat and puddings. Guess who got cancer? Me.’
Miss Williams, who has written a book about her health scare, has previously said her greatest fear in facing cancer was not seeing her children grow up. She has two adult children from a previous marriage and two children under 12 with Mr Woolwich.
Like many women, Miss Williams, who now anchors Channel 5 news, said she had spent years watching her mother struggling with diets, and had sworn she would never fall into the same trap.
She said: ‘My mum always seemed to be on one. Growing up, I saw many women like her denying themselves what they loved and still getting no thinner. I promised myself I’d never start one. And then along came “occasional fasting”, which seemed to promise a longer life. Got to try that one.
‘Sugar ages you? Give that up then. Stretchy gluten molecules can puff up your belly? OK, wheat’s gone. And don’t tempt me with that glass of wine; I’ve just read reports about it giving you cancer.’
She added: ‘My gut feeling for 2017 is this: that we will stop persecuting ourselves about what we should and shouldn’t eat.
‘We’ll stop living in hungry denial and we’ll stop pursuing the starvesugar-starve cycle.
‘This year will be all about eating for happiness, not just for weight loss. Let’s make it the year for “Good Mood Food”.’
Williams was writing ahead of a new ITV diet series looking into the impact of diet on the brain, as well as how affordable healthy food is.
She advised: ‘Moderation. It’s a horrible word but that doctor was right. The occasional sugar hit, as long as it is very occasional, is not going to kill us, although it will probably make us feel lousy.’