Coronation Street star Sue Cleaver has opened up about feeling “judged” about her weight, and has called for people to consider and change how they talk about weight and bodies generally.
Cleaver, who plays Eileen Grimshaw on the ITV soap, previously disclosed last year that her drop in weight was not due to a diet but a combination of factors – giving up alcohol, her stint on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and a serious illness.
She has previously been critical of scams using her likeness and her weight loss to front particular kinds of products, stressing that she would “would never, ever, ever advocate anything like that”.
Cleaver revealed on Loose Women that she felt shamed and judged both before losing weight and after.
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“My weight has been up down all over the place and most of it was helped by red wine,” she told the panel.
“At the minute I am a lot thinner but I’ve been ill this year and for some reason my metabolism seems to have changed and because I’m not drinking. But I have been the other way and I might go back the other way.
“What I hate about it is the shame that is attached to being a bigger person. The judgments made, quite often from other women. I find it really hard to take. We’re not stupid… don’t treat us like we are idiots.”
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Encouraging people to think about how they talk to each other about their bodies, Cleaver continued: “Other women are shocking [for] it. It’s so in us.
“Examples are when I’ve lost weight I go into a room and someone goes, ‘Oh my god, you look amazing, you’ve lost weight’, all I will hear is, ‘You looked like an absolute dog when you were big’. It’s how we talk about it that makes a big difference.”
After panellist Coleen Nolan also shared some of her experiences about feeling shame over her weight and her body, Cleaver added: “The worst is when someone who doesn’t have an issue and doesn’t know what it’s like to have a problem with weight makes the comments, makes the judgements: ‘You must lose weight, it’s not healthy!’
“It’s shame-based, we have to find a new way to approach it. Body diversity and positivity, it all comes from the same place, because we’re made to feel ashamed.”
Cleaver previously addressed her weight loss in a post on Instagram, revealing that she was “absolutely incensed” to learn that photos of her had been used to advertise dietary products, explaining that it was misleading given her own personal circumstances.
“Life’s too short to worry about dieting and finding quick fixes,” she added. “Just be happy with yourself.”
Coronation Street airs on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8pm on ITV1 and streams on ITVX.
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