Richard Osman has opened up about his four decade long battle with a food addiction as he admitted it was caused by childhood heartache.
The TV presenter confessed he has struggled with overeating ever since he was about nine years old when his father left the family home.
He admitted the addiction has been ‘absolutely ever-present’ in his life as he explained: ‘By and large, addiction is running away from your pain.’
Speaking candidly on Elizabeth Day’s podcast How To Fail, the former Pointless host, 53, discussed his addiction candidly, as he began: ‘It’s so ridiculous, this food stuff.
‘Alcoholics will tell you the same, like it’s absurd that there’s a bottle of vodka in front of you or there’s a packet of crisps in front of you and it’s more powerful than you.
Richard Osman has revealed his food addiction is still ‘absolutely ever-present’ in his life after a four decade long battle with the disease which stemmed from childhood heartbreak aged nine
Speaking candidly on Elizabeth Day’s podcast How To Fail, the former Pointless host, 53, discussed his addiction candidly, as he explained: ‘By and large, addiction is running away from your pain’
‘It makes no sense. People are very judgmental in this world. I think, “How can you judge anyone in this world and how they behave, or how they act, or what their instant reaction to something is when you are less powerful many times in your life than, like, a big bar of chocolate in front of you?”.
He continued: ‘We’ve all got human minds and we’re all crazy in slightly different ways.
‘That’s my version of it since I was probably nine years old. It’s been absolutely ever-present in my life — weight, food, where I am in relation to it, where I am in relation to happiness because of it, hiding it.
‘All of that stuff, it’s been absolutely like the drum beat of my life.’
Richard has previously spoken about the life-changing moment when his father summoned the family to the living room and announced he was having an affair.
The presenter said during an appearance on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs: ‘My father left when I was quite young, when I was about nine. And that was probably the end of that innocence, I suspect.’
For several months, Richard travelled by coach from the family home in Sussex to Rugby to see his father, but he soon cut ties.
The two were reconciled when Richard became a father in his twenties.
Richard (R) cut ties with his father after he left the family home when Richard was nine after telling the family he was having an affair (Richard pictured with is Aut Jan, brother Mat, grandfather Fred and grandmother Jessie L-R)
Speaking about his recovery, Richard revealed he began therapy later in life, and while he has relapses, he knows how to cope with it better
Delving into his addiction he told Elizabeth: ‘By and large, addiction is running away from your pain.
‘I was in a lot of pain, clearly, but do you know what, I was nine, ten . . . I don’t want to be in pain particularly, I don’t want to miss my dad, I want to go, “this is OK, everything’s fine”.
‘If you start going away from your true north, who it is you actually are, the further you get away the bigger leap you have to make back.
‘And so anything that can stop you thinking or numb you, or anything like that, is incredibly useful to you, because if you start thinking, you think ‘Yeah, but hold on, maybe I do miss him’.
‘Then you go, “Hold on, there’s some food in the fridge, I’ll have that”. Nine-year-old me and a different version of me sort of converged at the age of nine and the bit of me that converged was fuelled by food and fuelled by secrecy and fuelled by shame and all of those things.’
Speaking about his recovery, Richard revealed he began therapy later in life, and while he has relapses, he knows how to cope with it better.
He said: ‘I don’t have any personal shame any more. Addiction is shame. You’ll over-eat, you’ll feel shame about that. Shame makes you over- eat. It’s a spiral.
‘So you have to learn to absolutely just cut it off at the source, and if you do feel shame, just to go, ‘That’s all right’ because shame leads to more shame. I have to accept that it’s not embarrassing.
‘If people really told you their secrets, everyone on the street, we’re all f***ed. We’ve all got terrible things, we’ve all got stuff that we just think is crazy. That is because we are all human beings.’
Richard said the first person he told about his food addiction was Jimmy Mulville at production company Hat Trick, who he made comedy series Boyz Unlimited with, and he recommended a therapist called Bruce Lloyd.
He said: ‘I don’t have any personal shame any more. Addiction is shame. You’ll over-eat, you’ll feel shame about that. Shame makes you over- eat. It’s a spiral’ (pictured with his wife Ingrid Oliver)
As Elizabeth asked how much he has to wrestle with controlling his addiction now, Richard said: ‘Non-stop, I would say, but to the extent that it’s so daily that bits of it you sort of don’t even notice any more. It becomes second nature.
‘I’m always either in control or not in control. There’s not a point where I’m like “Oh yeah, I’m just going to chill today, I’ll just have a salad for lunch”.
‘It’s always I’m aware that I’m eating or not eating. It’s a huge amount easier than it was to understand it.
‘I know if I fall off the wagon I’m very forgiving of myself. I’ve got strategies for coping with it. But it’s always there.
‘You’re never not going to be an addict, ever, but you have to try to find a way to live with it.’
Richard also blamed people’s food problems and obesity on manufacturers as he insisted there is an obesity epidemic, ‘There’s an absolute epidemic of food addiction out there.’
‘There’s billions and billions being made by people combining fat and sugar in the absolute perfect way that doesn’t fill us up and makes us want more.
‘Every single psychologist trick, every single thing that can appeal to every single pleasure centre in our brain is applied to food.
‘I think there will come a time when the generation of food that we grew up on will be looked on in the same way as cigarettes.’
