The Woman’s Hour presenter has written a book about her lifelong struggle with her weight. She discusses fat-shaming, body positivity and what happened when she had bariatric surgery
A few years ago, Jenni Murray was out walking with her son and dogs when she saw a potential vision of her future. While she was strolling painfully around the park, stopping to rest at benches where she could, a woman not much larger than Murray passed them on a mobility scooter, her own dogs’ leads attached to the handlebars. If Murray – at 24 stone (152kg) – didn’t do something about her weight, her concerned son said, that might be her before long. How did she feel about herself at that point?
“Extremely obese,” she says. “I was not the fit, active person that I wanted to be. I just lumbered everywhere. I’d had breast cancer and a double hip replacement in my 50s, but it was the obesity that was going to kill me.” It was the final push Murray needed, after a lifetime of dieting, and a warning from her doctor that she was on the way to developing type 2 diabetes. “I thought, I’ve got to do something about it, I’m 64 and I’m not going to make it to 70.” She adds, triumph in her voice, “And I did make it to 70!” She reached the milestone birthday in May.
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