Inside John Prescott’s 20-year battle with extreme bulimia…as former deputy prime minister dies at 86

Former deputy prime minister John Prescott was as a political bruiser, an old-school Labour MP who could down a pint in five seconds and was no stranger to public outbursts — famously punching a farmer who egged him in 2001.

But privately he grappled with what is often wrongly considered to be a ‘women’s disease’ — the eating disorder bulimia.

Bulimia nervosa is a type of eating disorder where people eat large amounts of food in one sitting and then try and compensate by vomiting, taking laxatives or diuretics, fasting, or exercising excessively (called purging).

While it is thought the condition is caused by multiple factors, including genetics, it can be triggered by embarking on weight loss diets and, in Lord Prescott’s case, stress. 

The former MP for Kingston upon Hull East, who has died age 86 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s — went public with his condition in 2008, and was praised for raising awareness for eating disorders in men. 

Writing in his autobiography, Lord Prescott said his bulimia developed in the 1980s due to the stresses of serving in Labour’s then shadow cabinet.

He then struggled with the mental health condition for two decades.

He detailed how throughout his time in Tony Blair‘s Government he would binge burgers, chocolate, crisps as well as fish and chips.

Writing in The Sunday Times, which serialised his memoirs, Lord Prescott said when things got on top of him, he would ‘take refuge in stuffing my face’.

He also spoke of the shame and embarrassment he felt as man suffering from an eating disorder, later adding how he thought people would think he was ‘too unstable’ to be a minister should his condition become public.

‘People normally associate it with young women — anorexic girls, models trying to keep their weight down, or women in stressful situations, like Princess Diana,’ he wrote.

Lord Prescott attempted to hide his condition from his loved ones, but his wife Pauline realised what was happening due to ‘signs in the toilet that gave it away’ alongside the ‘missing food’. 

She urged him to see a doctor and he was eventually diagnosed with bulimia and sent for specialist help.

‘I turned up and found his waiting room full of young women. I was the only man there. I felt a right twerp,’ he recalled.

At the time he first spoke about his eating disorder he had been recovered for more than a year.

Lord Prescott’s decision to go public with his bulimia was highly praised at the time.

He was 69 when he made his revelation and helped to dismiss the idea that eating disorders were a condition that only blighted the lives of teenage girls.

Eating disorder charity Beat in particular hailed Lord Prescott’s honest account of his experience as helping people realise men can also easily fall victim to eating disorders.

While women indeed account for the majority of people with eating disorders, an estimated one in for sufferers are men. 

Like binge eating disorder and anorexia, bulimia can lead to serious physical health problems.

The frequent vomiting can cause a hole to develop in the stomach, and damage the throat and teeth due to the repeated exposure to acidic bile. 

In 2017 Lord Prescott told the Hull Daily Mail of the horrors of ‘forcing acid up your throat’.

‘That weakens your oesophagus, and eventually when you’re laying in bed at night the acid will rise up of its own accord,’ he said. 

‘It also has the effect of causing your glands on the side of your neck to swell out, which makes you look even larger.’

He also spoke of how letters and notes sent by people impacted by eating disorders, including the loved ones of sufferers, meant a lot to him. 

‘One of the letters was from a mother whose daughter was suffering from anorexia. She thanked me for talking publicly about my eating disorder, because she felt there was this perception that sufferers were weak,’ he said. 

Lord Prescott, the son of a railwayman and a servant from north Wales, died at the age of 86 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

His family said he passed to the sound of his favourite jazz music and surrounded with loved-ones at his care home.

In total, about one in 50 Brits is thought to be living with an eating disorder, and of these, about one in five are estimated to have bulimia specifically. 

Eating disorders, while commonly developing in adolescence, are known to have occurred in children as young as six and in adults in their 70s in the UK. 

Many people living with eating disorders do so for years, research suggests.

While treatment, which mainly consists of therapy and eating plans, is available, data suggests only about half of sufferers are completely cured.

Anyone worried about their own or someone else’s health relating to an eating disorder can contact Beat on 0808 801 0677 or at beateatingdisorders.org.uk