Labour MP opens up on body battle

A Labour MP has opened up about his own teenage battle with body dysmorphia as he spoke of the “immense” pressure people were under to look thin, healthy and muscular.

Chris Evans said he was “frustrated” by magazine covers with their celebrity weight loss headlines as he recalled his past “self-esteem” issues.

Speaking during a Westminster Hall debate on reducing stigma around eating disor- ders, the MP for Islwyn said: “When I was a teenager, my big role models were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone.

“Every time their films come out I want to look like them. It ended to the point that I was working out twice a day, I was lifting weights constantly, I was following a diet.

“I was suffering from all the causes of body dysmorphia, I never looked good enough.

“But at the same time that wasn’t the trigger, just by wanting to look like big Arnie, the trigger was my parents were going through divorce, it was a high-stress situation, I was about to sit my exams and the only way out of it was to look like Schwarzenegger or Stallone.” Mr Evans hit out at the media reaction to American actor Mark Wahlberg’s revelations about his daily overnight workout regime. He said: “Nobody in the media condemned him ... that to me is madness. What images are we sending out to our young people that it’s good to look like somebody... on Love Island?”