It's about control | Career timeline

JOHN PRESCOTT, who as deputy prime minister punched a protester in the face, has confessed to suffering from bulimia, the eating disorder usually associated with anxious young women.

In his memoirs to be serialised in this newspaper next month, he admits to gorging on vast amounts of food and then vomiting. Prescott writes in today’s Sunday Times: “I’ve never confessed it before. Out of shame, I suppose, or embarrassment or just because it’s such a strange thing for someone like me to confess to.

“People normally associate it with young women - anorexic girls, models trying to keep their weight down, or women in stressful situations, like Princess Diana.

“I could sup a whole tin of Carnation condensed milk, just for the taste, stupid things like that. Marks & Spencer trifles, I still love them, one of my favourites. I can eat them for ever. Whenever I go to Mr Chu’s in Hull, my favourite Chinese restaurant in the whole world . . . I could eat my way through the entire menu.”

Prescott says one of the causes of the disorder was stress, brought on by overwork as far back as the 1980s when he was in the Labour shadow cabinet.

“The only break I ever took was to eat. That’s all I did. Work, and then quickly eat something. It became my main pleasure, having access to my comfort food. So what I did was stuff my face with anything around, any old rubbish, burgers, chocolate, crisps, fish and chips, loads of it, till I felt sick - but at least I’d had the pleasure of stuffing my face and feeling really full. Then there would be a weird kind of pleasure in vomiting and feeling relieved.”

He writes of his shame at “this gorging, this greed”, and of trying to hide his bulimia from his wife, Pauline. “I thought, of course, I was being clever, and no one would ever know, but Pauline realised in the end. The signs in the toilet gave it away, and all the missing food.”

She persuaded him to seek medical help 17 years ago from the House of Commons doctor, who sent him to a consultant.

He recalls: “I turned up and found his waiting room full of young women. I was the only man there. I felt a right twerp. Luckily none of them shopped me to the press.

“Perhaps they thought I was on a fact-finding mission, never for one moment thinking that a man of my age and build could be suffering from bulimia nervosa, but that’s what the consultant said I had.”

Despite treatment, the condition continued and he was still bulimic when he became deputy prime minister in 1997: “I’m sure it was to do with stress. I wasn’t doing it all the time, and there would be gaps of weeks and months, but during those years when we first got into power, I let things get on top of me and took refuge in stuffing my face.”

Prescott, 69, resigned last June and is retiring as an MP at the next election. “I haven’t suffered from bulimia for more than a year now,” he says. “I try to exercise in the gym for 45 minutes every day. My weight, though, is still over 15 stone - as I do love my food - but I try not to snack between meals and to eat at sensible times.”

He hopes that by coming out about his bulimia he might “help the many young women - and others - who suffer from it. I hope that it will encourage people to come out and discuss these matters and not suffer in silence”.

After he developed diabetes in 1990, he made that public, getting involved in a government initiative to make people more aware of the illness; but he kept the bulimia secret.

Now he is offering his support to the National Health Service campaign on food disorders and to the public debate on bulimia and anorexia.

Times Recommends

• What makes the perfect mum?
• To keep me stress-free, no more awareness days, please
• What do lottery winners buy?