Boris Johnson health: How Tory leader hopeful was pushed to lose weight by doctors
Boris Johnson was born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson in 1964. He is a British politician, journalist and historian. Born in New York to wealthy upper-class English parents. Johnson was educated at the European School of Brussels and Eton College. He began his career in journalism at The Times and later moved to The Daily Telegraph and became assistant editor of the Telegraph in 1999. He was elected for MP for Henley in 2001, and served in the Shadow Cabinet under the Conservatives.
He was also the former Mayor of London and championed the Boris Bikes – the cycle intelligence initiative hoping to promote healthy lifestyles involving Londoners to ‘get on your bike’.
An initiative that for Johnson was close to his heart as he too took on a healthier lifestyle.
Boris explained to The Spectator last year: “I have had the joy of being back on my bike, and the reality of my physique has been obvious to all the people who have overtaken me; and when I say all, I mean all.
There have been moments — puffing uphill, against the wind — when I could have been overtaken by a toddler on a tricycle.
“The grim truth is that, excluding my rucksack, I have been carting around 16-and-a-half stone.”
That extra weight led to Johnson attending a health screening with a French doctor to determine what causes had lead him to put on so much weight. “I suddenly felt ashamed. Here I was, a representative of the political class of what is now the fattest nation in Europe and a living embodiment of our state of moral akrasia.”
The health screening came at a time when there was much uncertainty about the UK leaving the EU and the possible Brexit.
Johnson compared Brexit to his own health and said: “We know that we have to make certain changes if we are to leave the EU. We know that we have to get ready — to be lighter on our feet and more agile, if we are to take advantage of all the freedoms we will gain: the freedom to innovate, the freedom to regulate in the interests of UK firms, the freedom to open up new markets around the world to British goods and services. And what have we done? Nothing.
We have been unable to kick our habits, too paralysed, slothful and feeble to leave the customs union and single market.”
Johnson decided to be the change he wanted to see and had a diet overhaul. “I have not only laid off the Mars Bars; I have axed the cheese.
I breakfast like some Georgian hermit on porridge with a luxury sprinkling of nuts.
At drinks parties I guzzle water and marvel at the Pinteresque slowness with which we come to the point. Is it working? You bet it is.
After two weeks of eating healthy, Johnson described how his sight had improved, his interests peeked and had lost a total of 12 pounds. Johnson said: “If I can do it, so can we all.”
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