Eating Disorders

Chris Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on bringing this vital debate to the House. I pay tribute to everyone who is watching the debate, whether they are in the House or at home. I know that eating disorders—bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, body dysmorphia and others— are secretive and private illnesses that people battle, and that it is difficult for those individuals to speak out because of their fear of being judged.

Many Members touched on the immense pressure that people are under to look thin, healthy or muscular. When I was a teenager, my big role models were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Every time their films came out, I wanted to look like them. It got to the point where I worked out twice a day. I lifted weights constantly and followed a diet. I suffered from all the causes of body dysmorphia. I never looked good enough. But wanting to look like big Arnie was not the trigger; the trigger was that my parents were going through a divorce and I was about to sit my exams. It was a high-stress situation, and the only way out of it was to look like Schwarzenegger or Stallone. Luckily—or unluckily—I injured my arms and could not lift weights any more, and that feeling went away. But for so many people, it does not go away.

On my way to the Chamber, I went to the newsagent and looked at the magazines. This week’s Men’s Health says, “Lose belly fat in 30 days.” GQ has pictures of people with six-packs. Gary Barlow, who is promoting a new book, said, “I was so unhappy when I was 17 stone, but look at me now—I’m 12 stone. I lost 5 stone.” People are under immense pressure. Mark Wahlberg, who led the band Marky Mark and has starred in various films, said recently that his daily regime begins with him getting up at half-past 2 in the morning and working out twice before half-past 7, when he plays golf and goes off to work. Nobody in the media condemned him—everyone complimented him on his discipline. That is madness.

What message are we sending to young people—that it is good to look like someone from “Love Island”? When I am on the beach in Porthcawl, no one looks like they are on “Love Island”. This weekend, my wife and I decided to clear out some old books. Most of them were by Atkins or had titles like 30 Days to a New You or Body for Life—“12 weeks to your new body!” There was even one about the Dukan diet. All those diets sell a perfect way of life. If someone suffers from self-esteem issues and thinks they are not good enough, like I did many years ago, those books feed into that. It is not just social media that we have to come down on.

Let me say this about social media. I read in the paper that a young girl who got through to the final of “The X Factor” said she had been plagued by trolls about her size. As someone said earlier, if we force social media to take down illegal things, we should do the same with trolls. The Government could go further with the diet industry. The Advertising Standards Authority needs real teeth so that when it sees those things happen, it can come down on magazines and advertisers like a ton of bricks. Equally, we have introduced health warnings for things such as cigarettes and alcohol, and we should do exactly the same for eating disorders.

Eating disorders manifest themselves in different ways. For me, it was body dysmorphia and my constant desire to train. Other people experience other things. When I was about 10 or 11, an extremely skinny young woman lived at the top of our street. My mother, who said that the woman had anorexia, befriended her. That young woman said that every morning, she would wake up and eat a quarter of a red pepper. My mother asked why, and she said, “Because when that comes up, I know I’m empty.” She could not get the help she required. She could not get a referral to a psychiatrist.

It is all very well saying that that was 30 years ago, but it still happens. The National Audit Office reported the other day that a quarter of young people, who make up most of those affected by eating disorders, cannot get an appointment with a psychiatrist. When they do, it is often not with a specialist. The picture is patchy across the country.

Let me end as I began—by paying tribute to everyone who suffers from an eating disorder. I say to them: “Talk to someone. Seek out the help you need. It does not have to be from a professional—it just has to be from someone you trust. If you come forward, you will find that people do not judge you but try to help you if they can.”