The Swim author explains important reason why she gave her main character an eating disorder

I first became aware of my body aged 14 after being told I had a ‘good figure’. Then someone else mentioned I was too skinny, but later, aged 15, a teenage boy at the running club I was a member of commented that my bum resembled a sack of potatoes. He’d said it to generate laughs while we ran hard for five miles during training. 

I didn’t find it funny; I went home and weighed myself. I felt ugly and fat and shameful. I immediately went on a diet, masking it as a bit of a joke to my family. 

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In a bid to ‘watch her weight’, which was a pervasive 80s narrative, my mum had labelled certain foods ‘good’ or ‘naughty’. Taking this as a guide, I consumed only low-fat food from the ‘good food’ group. It was the decade that cottage cheese ruled! I lost the mythical half stone without reaching nirvana, further snubbing griping hunger pains, quickly becoming even more preoccupied by food, calories, the size of my thighs and being ‘thin’. A few friends were also on diets and we’d test each other on the calorific values of everything, thus normalising restricted eating.

Eventually, unable to cope on less than one thousand calories a day and badly missing chocolate, I succumbed to the hopelessness of bulimia as an occasional quick fix in the battle of the bulge. This covert purging soon spiralled out of control after my parents split up. My teeth started crumbling and daily exhaustion flattened me, yet being thin was all that mattered.

When I initially sat down to write The Swim, revisiting my eating disorder was never part of the plan. Mostly because a cloak of shame surrounds it, but also because until now I’ve never talked about it in forensic detail, especially to my family, particularly not the children.

In my new book, everywoman Cordelia Franks is training to swim the English Channel – more people have conquered Everest. I had to dream up a character that readers could identify with, someone held back by something her entire life so that swimming the Channel becomes like crossing the Rubicon. 

So I checked in with myself and looked around at friends and family, at society: what limiting belief did many people share regardless of gender? At some point in life, at least one of us will have dieted, or wished away that mythical half-stone believing life will be magically transformed. For the sake of the storyline, I needed Cordelia to be crippled by this universal impediment; it had to be life-threatening.

So I gave her an eating disorder, something I didn’t need to investigate – unlike swimming the Channel which I heavily researched, regularly dipping in the sea in mid-winter. As exhilarating as cold water is, I will never swim the Channel!

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In the 80s there was little help for a child in the grip of an eating disorder. My mum tried to drag me to the GP, but he was a few years off retirement and the last person I wanted to talk to about my dirty secret. It wasn’t until I went to university that I realised I couldn’t carry on and sought help. Even that was pretty barbaric, with one therapist threatening to sit with me while I ate trigger foods, using force if necessary to prevent me going to the toilet. I ran out and never returned (like Cordelia does in The Swim).

All purging ceased following this brutal exchange, though I never examined the ‘why’ and remained focused on my thigh gap lodestar for a few years. This undoubtedly contributed to a brief relapse in my mid-20s after a significant breakup, something I’d not openly admitted until I started writing The Swim. 

Having a family tamed a lot of demons, but as the children grew up I worried they’d face a similar fate after a careless remark or two. With this in mind, I’ve always tried to advocate asking children about their favourite book, film or toy rather than offering compliments for looking pretty or handsome. Mentioning weight gain or loss for anyone reduces someone to just their size and I know how triggering that was growing up. 

Sometimes it feels like we’ve not moved on, with press and social media fat shaming celebrities, and influencers promoting a certain aesthetic whilst peddling weight-loss tea. Shielding kids from the constant barrage is impossible. To mitigate this I won’t trash talk myself in front of them or label food ‘good’ or ‘bad’. I occasionally slip into old habits of self-denigration – I remain a work in progress.

But so far, the kids are all right. Fortunately, fat days have been dialled down to background noise; they have no real effect on my life. Intrusive thoughts are just thoughts, and until society stops obsessing about size, looks, ageing, all we can do is deal with our own ‘stuff’ the best we can and focus our attention where it matters. Like cat videos.  

The Swim by Janet Hoggarth is out now (Boldwood, £12.99).

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