Tom Grennan says therapy helps with his body dysmorphia | UK News

Singer Tom Grennan has said having therapy has helped him with issues around body dysmorphia, calling himself his “own biggest critic”.

Speaking on You About? – the performer’s podcast with his best friend, broadcaster Roman Kemp – Grennan spoke about how it affected him.

“I definitely have body dysmorphia,” he said. “I’m always constantly thinking I am bigger than I am. Or I’m always pinching my belly. It’s not a healthy mindset at all, and I fully admit that.”

Eating patterns and gym training habits, he noted, can have a big impact on his mental health. “Sometimes I wouldn’t be training for the purpose of staying fit,” he added.

“I’d have a binge and then think, ‘I need to train now to make sure this food isn’t put on to me – which is an unhealthy way of being.”

With reference to how he viewed himself and his own body, the Little Bit of Love singer continued: “I’m at home in the mirror going to my missus, ‘I’m fat’ and she’s like, ‘are you joking?’

“I’m so scared of going back to where I was. I always think I need to stay at this point.”

The singer from Bedford has previously spoken on the same podcast about how being physically attacked on a night out when he was younger changed his life and sent him mentally “spiralling”.

In the latest episode, the 30-year-old revealed he was in therapy for issues around body dysmorphia, which he finds helps to “actually love yourself more”.

Feelings of guilt often follow eating binges, he added. For example, when one biscuit turns into half a pack, he said, he can be left thinking: “I’m gonna be fat. I’m gonna be so unfit.”

According to the NHS website, body dysmorphia – or body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) – is “a mental health condition where a person spends a lot of time worrying about flaws in their appearance. These flaws are often unnoticeable to others.”

It affects both men and women of all ages but is most common in teenagers and young adults.

“Having BDD does not mean you’re vain or self-obsessed,” it continues. “It can be very upsetting and have a big impact on your life.”

Symptoms can include worrying a lot about a specific area of your body and spending a lot of time comparing your looks with other people’s, as well as either looking at yourself in the mirror a lot or avoiding mirrors entirely.

People with body dysmorphia also go to a lot of effort to conceal flaws with clothes and make-up, or pick at their skin.

TV and radio presenter Kemp shared some of his own experiences with Grennan on the pressures of body image in show business.

“I can’t look at a picture of myself if it’s on the day because it will upset me for the rest of the day,” he noted.

“I’ll be judging everything, and it won’t be about what I’m doing, it’ll be about how I look.”

He recalled witnessing one extreme example of such pressures for one young woman at a fashion show in Milan. “We were doing the rehearsal, and she fainted on stage,” he remembered.

“We tried to give her food, because she needs to eat, but [she was] straight up refusing,” he added.

“I saw that on a regular basis.”

Kemp also recounted how someone in a pub recently told him he looked “a lot fatter on telly”.

He said: “I fluctuate a lot, but that’s just because sometimes you’ll be working more, like anyone.”

Grennan went on to tell Breakfast on Tuesday how he had channelled heartbreak, hard life lessons and some advice from his mum too into his new album, Everywhere I Went, Led Me to Where I Didn’t Want to Be.

“I was lost and I was young and I was stupid sometimes, and my mum could see something wasn’t right,” said the singer, who has two previous number one albums to his name.

“And a lot of people could see, but I was very much [like], ‘no I need to be going full at it and doing everything I can to become a big star or whatever’.

He added: “But actually none of that matters. Peace of mind is my mantra at the moment.

“When you’ve got peace of mind everything falls into place and you can see your way out of anything.”

If you need mental health support this link provides information about how to get help.