I don't know why you feel you can diagnose people, Anna, but if you read up on the subject you would realise that Bulimia Nervosa normally has no starvation involved. It's people like you that stop men getting treatment, because they don't fit in with your "image" of the disease.

Mary, Bath,

The attitude implicit in some of the comments in this forum are disgusting. Eating disorders are an illness and people do not choose to suffer from them. Would people with a physical disease be ridiculed or accused of seeking publicity? No. Grow up.

R. Parkes, London,

Bulimia is set to be the new conspicuous consumption. never mind the magnums of Krug of the '80s and '90s, with food prices through the roof the glitterati will soon all be popping to the powder room with a knowing wink for a chunder rather than to do a few lines.

Hughie & Ralph, Pontefract,

He's making a mockery of those who genuinely suffer from bulimia. It is an eating disorder that goes hand-in-hand with self-starvation, not the occasional pasttime of a greedy, overweight middle-aged man feeling a bit sorry for himself due to stress at work.

Anna, Manchester,

'The abiding image was of him punching that egg-thrower with the mullet.'

Whilst this loutish behaviour was laughed off over here (well, John's John), the damage overseas, where many countries look up to the UK as an example of how things should be done, was incalculable and longlasting.

mnairb, Hove, U.K.

oh, a very interesting article, i agree with the arguement on if people should eat tomatoes or not, they are currently a very very dangerous fruit!! so please beware! i know i wont be eating them
safe.

teresa green, dunbar, scotland

I generally loathe the culture of misery and victim worship but I make an exception when it comes to mental and eating disorders among men. Already too many boys and men commit suicide rather than seek help because they think they're the only ones and that it's unmanly to admit there's a problem. If a man who was once the second most powerful in the country can admit to this, that's got to help all the males struggling with their own demons. It doesn't mean they need to shout it from the rooftops, but they can visit their GPs and get referred for the help they need.

I never thought I'd say this, but bravo Prescott.. This is the only thing he's ever done that's won my respect.

Rachel, London,

I'm glad John Prescott has highlighted the problems some of us men have.
Now I can hold my head up high and not ask for a corner table in the restaurant where I go to indulge myself.
No longer do I ask for the case of Chateau Laffitte to be put in a plain brown wrapper and delivered to the servants entrance.
Eating mounds of caviar and dozens of oysters is OK again.
He may have been useless as a Deputy Prime Minister but what a Minister of Food he would have made?

GJB, Slough, Berkshire

No, an eating disorder is an illness, not a recreational activity people do to be 'cool'. Have you tried asking someone who suffers from this horrible disorder how 'cool' it makes them feel?

Sarah, London, UK

I don't have any sympathy for John Prescott at all. The food bills as we all now know were paid for by the taxpayer, so not only do we have the shock of discovering that Prescott stuffed his face with £4000 of our money a year but also he puked it up, no doubt over an expensive carpet paid for by us or down a toilet paid for by us.
There is no epidemic of bulimia in middle-aged men, just one sad old fatso, who also happened to be the joke deputy leader of NuLabour , who ate rubbish food and wonders why it disagreed with him.

Dave, Slough,

"Nothing that the former Deputy Prime Minister did in government caused such a stir." - John Prescott did things whilst in government? He came across as a party official given a glorified non-job to keep him out the way. This, fortunately, meant he was not involved in serious decision-making. When this was not the case, such as with regional assemblies, it was an unmitigated disaster clearly fuelled by party considerations.

I laughed most at Mr Prescott's claim that his problem was caused by stress. As far as I can recall he achieved nothing (other than sleeping with his secretary), hardly the most stressful of environments.

John Scott, London,