Content Warning: Eating disorders, bulimia

Cricketer and television personality Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff has recently opened up about his struggles with mental health, and in particular bulimia, in a BBC documentary entitled ‘Freddie Flintoff: Living with Bulimia’. Flintoff discussed the pressure which he faced from the media during his cricketing years, and explained that it was the consistent comments about his weight which led him to feel ‘proud’ after purging.

Freddie Flintoff is a highly popular celebrity, having risen to prominence in the public eye after his retirement from cricket through his television work on ‘A League of Their Own’ and more recently ‘Top Gear’. Previously, Flintoff was known for being a troublemaker, and he is infamous for the claim that he both threw up and urinated in the garden of number 10 Downing Street after winning the Ashes in 2005.

Whilst perceptions of Flintoff have changed as he has matured in recent years, he is undoubtedly still viewed as a laddish character, continuously pulling pranks on his fellow ‘A League of their Own’ panellists, always appearing light-hearted and fun. His revelations within the documentary therefore shed an entirely new light onto Flintoff’s life and relationship with his body. The documentary explored Flintoff’s intense struggle with bulimia, and gave the public a new perspective into a figure whose humour often appears impenetrable, showing that mental illness and bulimia can affect even the strongest people. It was widely discussed on social media, with many on twitter branding the interview ‘raw’ and ‘unflinching’.

In the documentary, Flintoff highlighted the control that bulimia had over him in its peak, explaining that it ruled his life and revealing, ‘The one thing I could control was my bulimia, everything else was out of control’. He revealed that he had never sought help for his illness, and is still battling with his bulimia today, even disclosing that he had succumbed to purging this year. The documentary highlighted aspects of Flintoff’s life which he had not previously attributed to his bulimia, such as his compulsion to exercise every day. He stated that he is ‘always trying to get lighter and smaller’, and that he thinks about his weight and his bulimia almost every 20 minutes.

It is particularly important that Flintoff’s illness manifested whilst he was a professional sportsman, as this has historically been a profession in which participants are expected to be flawless, despite receiving intense criticism on all aspects of their lives from both the media and the public. As well as this, the fact that Flintoff is a male is important, as eating disorders are something which are rarely associated with men, and this can therefore make men who suffer with these eating disorders feel ashamed or emasculated. Flintoff himself notes in the documentary that he feels like he should ‘just be able to stop’ owing to his gender, and the toxic masculinity faced by men is one of the reasons that he kept his illness hidden for so long. In fact, the Priory group state that 25% of people with eating disorders are male.

By revealing his own struggles, Flintoff has shown that it is healthy to share your issues and admit when you are struggling , and that it does not make you any less of a man. Hopefully men who either relate to Flintoff or idolise him may follow in his footsteps and feel more comfortable talking about their own mental health. This is essential, as eating disorders are so often difficult to detect, despite having the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder , killing over 10,000 people per year.

With the lessening stigma around mental illness in recent years, and the rise of prominent figures such as Freddie Flintoff sharing their own experiences, it is hoped that it will become far easier and more acceptable for sufferers to find help, which will in turn remove the shame from mental illness. Maintaining good mental health is essential to a healthy lifestyle, and struggling with an eating disorder, or any other mental health issue, is nothing to be ashamed of.

If you have been effected by the contents of this article, please seek help through Beat. You can also contact Beat UOB via Facebook.

Learn more about issues surrounding eating disorders with these articles:

The Fat-Shaming Facade of Calories on Menus

Disordered Eating During Lockdown

Eating Habits: Separating the Opinions from the Facts