Vanessa Feltz reveals her mum put her on a ‘drastic’ diet aged 9-Meghna Amin-Entertainment – Metro

Vanessa Feltz has opened up about her mum putting her on a diet when she was a child (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)

Vanessa Feltz has revealed her mum put her on a ‘drastic’ diet when she was just nine years old, which felt like a ‘punishment’.

The TV presenter, 62, has previously spoken about her struggles with food and weight, and had gastric band surgery in 2010.

She’s now revealed that her attitude towards eating stems from her mum worrying she was ‘going to get fat’ when she was a child.

In her new memoir, in extracts obtained by The Mirror, Vanessa says: ‘I had never been one of those chubby little children finishing off the birthday cake and looking for another biscuit. I was a skinny little girl who avoided sponge cake and cheese, and hardly thought about eating at all.

‘So, when my body began to change, my mother thought: “Oh my God! Vanessa is going to get fat!”

‘I was nine and fitted comfortably into clothes for nine-year-olds. Nevertheless, my mother began to curb, quite drastically and publicly, what I was allowed to eat.

‘We’d be having dinner, and she would announce to the rest of the family, “We’re all having the soup with [open itals] kreplach, kneidlach and lokshen [close itals] (wontons, dumplings and vermicelli). For you, Vanessa, half a grapefruit”.

‘It felt like a punishment, and I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it. I hadn’t been caught shoving chocolates into my mouth.’

Vanessa said the diet felt ‘like a punishment’ (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)

Vanessa adds that her father ‘never came to my defence’, and she was left at the time with the ‘new sensation’ of hunger after the ‘sudden and shocking’ regime her mum put her on.

‘She put a lock on the biscuit cupboard and hid the key. I never found it,’ Vanessa goes on in the memoir.

‘My attitude to eating changed. Whenever I managed – at a party or on my birthday – to get hold of biscuits or sweets, I devoured them instantly. I chain-consumed anything sugary with grim relentlessness.

‘It launched me on a cycle all too familiar to anyone with an eating disorder or addiction of any kind. You eat to make yourself feel better, knowing you are already making yourself feel a whole lot worse.’

Vanessa has previously spoken about her struggles with food and weight (Picture: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

Vanessa has previously spoken about her struggles with weight, and worrying about gaining weight after having to have her gastric band removed.

In 2019, she told former This Morning hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield about the agony she suffered as a result of the slipped gastric band.

She said: ‘I spoke with you before about the gastric band I had fitted in 2010, and it turned out to be much more complicated – it turned out it had slipped, and I was having horrible symptoms, waking up feeling as if I was drowning, my throat, ears, eyes, nose seemed to be full of liquid. It was all quite horrible and quite unexpected.’

She went on to explain that her surgeon told her the band would have to be removed, and weight gain would be a likely side effect.

‘I was told by a surgeon that I would have to have the band removed and he said you know what will probably happen, when it comes out you’ll start eating again and you’ll put the weight on again because you’re a lifelong yo-yo dieter – and unfortunately I am, it’s true,’ she said.

Vanessa had gastric band surgery in 2010 (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)

‘Did that worry me? Yes.’

Vanessa ended up in intensive care, as she explained: ‘It turned out the gastric band had been thoroughly embedded in my liver and it had to be very carefully dissected out and that took some time, it had also caused a hernia that had to be repaired.’

As a side effect, she lost three stone, adding: ‘Which is great because it’s good for my joints, it’s good for the heart, diabetes, and really good for buying clothes! I’m loving that. And I’m generally a bit less interested in eating food.’

She went on: ‘Why couldn’t I say no to a piece of cake? I was never really able to get to the bottom of it. I’ve had counselling and a bit of therapy over the years, and it’s been my downfall.

‘It’s been my problem and I hoped the gastric band knocked in on the head and just dealt with it, but it just didn’t. I learnt that one in five people will have problems [with their band]… I feel like I didn’t conquer it.

‘I feel good. And I feel a bit embarrassed when people say ‘well done’ as it was the surgeon, not me. But I’ll take any compliments I can at my age!’

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