Gary Barlow health: Take That singer on his bulimia battle – symptoms to spot
We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.
Candidly sharing his personal experience with bulimia, Gary Barlow believes it’s a condition that has stayed with him – even when he’s made a successful comeback.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, in 2018, Gary told presenter Lauren Laverne he believes he has “a healthy eating disorder”.
He quipped: “If there is one… There was definitely a lightbulb moment for me when I realised this is as bad as I want it to get.
“I had young kids at the time and it felt highly irresponsible to be in the shape I was in.”
Dad to Daniel, 20, Emily, 18 and Daisy, 11, at his lowest point his weight ballooned to 17st.
In his autobiography, A Better Me, Gary said: “Some people self-medicate with drink or drugs; I just eat and eat and eat.”
In a typical day, he said he’d “he’d skip breakfast, but scoff baked potatoes, tuna pasta, sacks of fruit, trays of sushi, and rice cakes”.
He added that in the same day he’d continue to consume “sachets of low-calorie soup, 19 cups of coffee, gallons of Diet Coke, followed by a ‘skinny ladies’ lunch”.
Gary would then finish it off with “a massive restaurant dinner” and a “sleeping pill to take the edge off it all”.
At the time, Gary felt that the more weight he put on, “the easier life” became.
He’d think to himself: “With every day and every binge, I am eating the pop star to death.”
Piling on the weight, Gary was unrecognisable, which he described as “wonderful”.
After his binging, Gary decided to make himself sick. “The first time I did it, it took me 15 minutes to get the job done,” he recalled.
“Now it takes me 30 seconds,” he wrote in the book. “I lay a towel down to kneel on… fingers go down my throat and I press down.”
He continued: “I go back to bed and lie awake… my heart racing, sore throat, worrying and overstimulated. I can never sleep after I’ve done it.”
What’s bulimia?
The National Eating Disorders Association stated bulimia nervosa is a “serious, potentially life-threatening eating disorder”.
The illness is characterised by a cycle of binge eating food and self-induced vomiting.
The physical act of vomiting is “designed to undo or compensate for the effect of binge eating”.
The recurrent binge-and-purge cycles of bulimia “can affect the entire digestive system”.
It can lead to “electrolyte and chemical imbalances in the body that affect the heart and other major organ functions”.
Bulimia symptoms
The NHS outline symptoms of the eating disorder:
- Eating very large amounts of food in a short time, often in an out-of-control way – this is called binge eating
- Making yourself vomit, using laxatives, or doing an extreme amount of exercise after a binge to avoid putting on weight – this is called purging
- Fear of putting on weight
- Being very critical about your weight and body shape
- Mood changes – for example, feeling very tense or anxious
People with bulimia may “sense a lack of control over eating”, such as “feeling that one can’t stop eating or control what, or how much, one is eating”.
Remembering back to an episode, Gary wrote: “I am eating like an animal – barely chewing and almost growling as I suck the food down.”
Compensatory behaviour (in order to prevent weight gain after binging) can include the misuse of laxatives, diuretics, fasting, or excessive exercising.
Gary Barlow will be starring on BBC One’s The Graham Norton Show, 10:45pm on Friday, November 27.
Source: Read Full Article