A look inside John Prescott’s 20-year battle with severe bulimia… as the former deputy prime minister dies at 86

Former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was a political powerhouse, an old-school Labor MP who could down a pint in five seconds and was no stranger to public outbursts – such as punching a farmer who punched him in 2001.

But privately he struggled with what is often wrongly regarded as a ‘women’s disease’: the eating disorder bulimia.

Bulimia nervosa is a type of eating disorder in which people eat large amounts of food at once and then try to compensate by vomiting, using laxatives or diuretics, fasting, or excessive exercise (called purging).

Although the condition is thought to be caused by several factors, including genetics, it can be caused by following weight loss diets and, in Lord Prescott’s case, by stress.

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

In his autobiography, Lord Prescott said his bulimia developed in the 1980s as a result of the stress of serving in Labour’s then shadow cabinet.

He subsequently struggled with mental health for 20 years.

He explained how he drank burgers, chocolate, chips and fish and chips during his time in Tony Blair’s government.

In The Sunday Times, in which his memoirs were published, Lord Prescott said that if things got over his head he would ‘resort to stuffing my face’.

He also spoke of the shame and embarrassment he felt as a man suffering from an eating disorder, later adding that he thought people would think he was “too unstable” to be a minister if his condition became public.

“People normally associate it with young women – girls with anorexia, models trying to keep their weight down, or women in stressful situations, like Princess Diana,” he wrote.

Lord Prescott tried to hide his condition from his loved ones, but his wife Pauline realized what was happening thanks to ‘signs in the toilet giving it away’ in addition to the ‘missing food’.

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

“I showed up and found his waiting room full of young women. I was the only man there. I felt like a real idiot,” he recalled.

When he first spoke about his eating disorder, he had already been in recovery for over a year.

Lord Prescott was a political powerhouse, an old-school Labor MP who could down a pint in five seconds and was an expert boxer

He was famously, as he joked, “connected to the electorate” after punching Craig Evans in 2001 after urging the Labor politician

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

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

Eating disorder charity Beat particularly praised Lord Prescott’s honest account of his experience in helping people realize that men can also easily fall victim to eating disorders.

Although women indeed make up the majority of people with eating disorders, men are estimated to be one of the sufferers.

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

The frequent vomiting can cause a hole to form in the stomach and damage to 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 down your throat’.

“That weakens your esophagus, and when you lie in bed at night, the acid will eventually come up on its own,” he said.

‘It also has the effect of making your glands on the side of your neck swell, making you look even bigger.’

The then Deputy Prime Minister Prescott is pictured with the then Prince of Wales Charles in 1998

Lord Prescott pictured with his wife Pauline, who encouraged him to seek help for his eating disorder

He also talked about how letters and notes from people affected by eating disorders, including the patients’ loved ones, meant a lot to him.

‘One of the letters was from a mother whose daughter suffered from anorexia. “She thanked me for speaking publicly about my eating disorder because she felt the patients were weak,” he said.

Lord Prescott, the son of a railwayman and a North Wales clerk, died aged 86 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

His family said he settled into the sound of his favorite jazz music and was surrounded by loved ones in his nursing home.

Overall, around one in fifty Britons are thought to suffer from an eating disorder, and around one in five are estimated to have bulimia specifically.

Although eating disorders often develop in adolescence, they are known to occur in children as young as six and adults in their 70s in the UK.

Many people with an eating disorder have been doing this for years, research shows.

Although treatment is available, which mainly consists of therapy and eating plans, data shows that only about half of patients are completely cured.

Anyone concerned about their own health or that of someone else in relation to an eating disorder can contact Beat on 0808 801 0677 or at beatingdisorders.org.uk