Last Updated on 9 months ago by Charbel Coorey
In a BBC documentary Freddie Flintoff: Living With Bulimia, former cricketer Andrew Flintoff admitted about his discomfort regarding body image. The all-rounder suffered from bulimia right when his sports was at the peak during England’s iconic 2005 Ashes series against Australia. In the documentary, the 42-year-old said that he was diagnosed with an eating disorder during his playing career in 2014.
“I don’t want to be a statistic. I don’t want it to be read that something has happened to me. I became known as a fat cricketer. That was horrible. That was when I started doing it. That was when I started being sick after meals. Then things started happening for me as a player”, he said.
Flintoff said that everyone focused on his weight during the early days of her international career. He also explained how he used to feel sick all the time. “Everyone was happy with me. My weight was coming down. It was like: ‘I’m bossing this.’ It just carried on and I was doing it all the time.” : “I scored my first hundred in New Zealand in Christchurch. I came off at lunch and threw my lunch up”, he said.
He used to keep it a secret and vomit on the grounds so that his relationship with other players in the dressing room could not change. “I knew all the grounds and where it was easier [to throw up]. Lord’s was so much easier because the toilets were away from the dressing rooms.”
Written by Anjali Jha. Follow Anjali on Twitter today.
