Colin Brown: After an official buffet, he'd have a snack at McDonald's

John Prescott was always self-conscious about his weight. "My overeating is partly the legacy of my father, who said your plate had to be bloody empty before you left the table because of the starving in China," he once told me. "Recently, I've started leaving little bits but I feel guilty about it."

But there was more to it than that. His struggle with bulimia was the sad reality behind the jovial front of a man whose taste for hearty dinners was well-documented.

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When I first heard about it, I found it incredible that a man as robust as Prescott should suffer from an eating disorder. He kept it private out of a sense of shame and embarrassment, he said yesterday. I suspect he also feared it would be seen as an admission that he could not cope with high office.

It was well known at Westminster that he was a compulsive eater, but few knew he had sought medical help. The first I heard of it was when a Sunday newspaper contacted me some years ago; the allegations were then flatly denied by his aides.

It wasn't until years later that he confirmed to me in private that he had been making himself sick to shed pounds. As it was a private illness, I felt bound to keep his confidence.

By the time he became deputy leader of the Labour Party in 1994, he was already on the slippery slope towards bulimia.

He could not stop himself nibbling during the day. Instead of regular meals, he grazed the tables at official buffets. His eating behaviour was like a nervous tick. After hosting a buffet at Admiralty House, he was seen trotting across the road to McDonald's for a snack. Temptation overcame him after a stunt in which he lined up enormous butcher's pork pies to represent Tory lies. When the press conference was over, he was found stuffing his mouth with a tasty half-truth. His enjoyment of high-fat treats such as fish and chips at his favourite Hull haunt is well-known.

As Prescott's weight ballooned, Rosie Winterton, his former special adviser, asked me how they could encourage him to lose weight. I suggested he keep it simple: eat less.

It was not advice he was able to take. When he stopped making himself sick, his waist-band bulged. That drove him to angst-ridden depression, which in turn made him eat more.

Pauline, his long-suffering wife, tried to get him to eat less, but found it impossible to get him to stick to a diet. She eventually urged him to go to his doctor, just, in fact, as she did over his diabetes.

Colin Brown is the author of 'Fighting Talk: The Biography of John Prescott'.