Louise Minchin has revealed the heartbreaking reason why she gave up her budding swimming career as a teenager.
The former BBC Breakfast host, 55, told how she had shown promise as a swimmer in her teens but chose to quit at age 15 because of body image issues.
Appearing on ITV’s James Martin’s Saturday Morning, Louise admitted she became self-conscious about her shoulders because swimming made them ‘quite muscular’.
During her chat with James, he said: ‘I mentioned earlier in the chat, you love sport, you are sporty?’
Louise replied: ‘I was really late to it because I gave up sport. This is a really important message, I like talking about it. When I was 15, I gave it up…’
Louise Minchin has revealed the heartbreaking reason why she gave up her budding swimming career as a teenager
The former BBC Breakfast host, 55, told how she had shown promise as a swimmer in her teens but chose to quit at age 15 because of body image issues (pictured as a teen)
James interjected and said: ‘You gave it up, you wanted to be an athlete?’
Louise said: ‘I gave it up to be brutal because I looked in the mirror, I was a good swimmer, and I saw my really muscley shoulders and I thought, ‘I don’t like how that makes me look.”
However, she later had a change of heart, adding: ‘Now I’m really happy to have muscley shoulders.’
The broadcaster has since rediscovered her love of swimming and took it up again in her forties.
Sharing pride in her sporting achievements, she said: ‘If you told me this ten years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you, so I now do more endurance sport like long-distance swims, I did one at the weekend which was 3km which I love.’
The conversation moved onto Louise’s decision to leave BBC Breakfast in September 2021 after presenting the show for 20 years.
James asked: ‘So I want to talk to you about leaving something like that because that’s a big decision for you?’
Louise told of the sacrificies hosting the show required, saying: ‘I talked about how much I loved being on the show and loved being part of this huge BBC Breakfast family but at the end of the day, you have to get up extremely early, you know it’s relentless.
Appearing on ITV ‘s James Martin ‘s Saturday Morning, Louise admitted she became self-conscious about her shoulders because swimming made them ‘quite muscular’
Louise later had a change of heart, adding: ‘Now I’m really happy to have muscley shoulders’
Speaking about quitting BBC Breakfast in 2021, she said: ‘I was permanently jet-lagged and eventually I thought, I’ve loved this, it’s been fantastic but I need to get some sleep’
‘I was permanently jet-lagged and eventually I thought, I’ve loved this, it’s been fantastic but I need to get some sleep.’
After quitting BBC Breakfast, Louise took part in the 2021 series of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! where she finished in seventh place.
The star appeared on James’s show to promote her new book Isolation Island.
James Martin’s Saturday Morning airs Saturdays on ITV, from 09:30am.
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