Louise Minchin has revealed the heartbreaking reason she gave up her budding swimming career as a teenager.
The former BBC Breakfast presenter, 55, told how she had shown promise as a swimmer in her teens but decided to quit at the age of 15 due to body image issues.
Speaking on ITV’s James Martin’s Saturday Morning show, Louise admitted she felt self-conscious about her shoulders because swimming made them “quite muscular”.
During his chat with James, he said: ‘I mentioned earlier in the chat that you love sport, are you sporty?’
Louise replied: “I found out too late because I stopped playing sports. It’s a very important message, I like to talk about it. I stopped when I was 15…”
Louise Minchin has revealed the heartbreaking reason she gave up her budding swimming career as a teenager.
The former BBC Breakfast presenter, 55, told how she had shown promise as a swimmer in her teens but decided to quit at the age of 15 due to body image issues (pictured as a teenager).
James stepped in and said, ‘You quit, you wanted to be an athlete?’
Louise said: ‘I stopped being brutal because I looked in the mirror, I was a good swimmer and I saw my really muscular shoulders and I thought, ‘I don’t like how that makes me look’.
However, he later changed his mind and added: “Now I’m really happy to have muscular shoulders.”
The presenter 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 had told me this ten years ago I wouldn’t have believed you, so now I do more endurance sports like long distance swimming, I did one at the weekend which was 3km and I love it.”
The conversation revolved around 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 this because it’s an important decision for you?’
Louise spoke about the sacrifices that presenting the show required, saying: ‘I’ve talked about how much I loved being on the show and I 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.
Speaking on ITV’s James Martin’s Saturday Morning show, Louise admitted she felt self-conscious about her shoulders because swimming made them “quite muscular”.
Louise later changed her mind and added: “Now I’m really happy to have muscular shoulders.”
Speaking about leaving BBC Breakfast in 2021, she said: ‘I was permanently jet-lagged and I finally thought: I’ve loved this, it’s been fantastic, but I need some sleep.’
‘I was permanently jetlagged and at the end I thought: I loved it, it was fantastic but I need to get some sleep.’
After leaving 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’ show to promote her new book Isolation Island.
James Martin’s Saturday Morning show airs on ITV on Saturdays from 9.30am.