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EASTENDERS actress turned body-confidence influencer Melissa Suffield on why hurtful claims that her dramatic weight loss was down to diet drugs cut her deep.
Having built a vast social media following on the back of an empowering body-confidence message, when Melissa Suffield started losing weight, she faced a bitter backlash.
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Many saw her noticeably slimmer frame as a betrayal of everything she stood for, and they informed her she’d “lost her values”.
As the former soap star dropped from a dress size 14-16 to an eight (sometimes even a six), others accused her of being on weight-loss injection Ozempic – an insult to someone who had fought so hard against society’s beauty standards.
The truth was that Melissa, who found fame more than 20 years ago playing EastEnders’ Lucy Beale, was seriously ill.
She was suffering from a little-known chronic condition called SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), which has made her life a living hell for the last 20 months.
READ MORE ON CELEB WEIGHT LOSS
The effects have been devastating. Symptoms of the condition include abdominal pain, bloating and changes in bowel movements.
As well as rapid weight loss caused by her symptoms, Melissa’s hair fell out and her mental health plummeted.
She’s also been sapped of energy, which has left her struggling to care for her five-year-old son River.
It’s hit her financially, too, as she’s forked out thousands of pounds privately to get the answers the NHS couldn’t give her.
“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” she says. “It’s so consuming and relentless, because if it’s not the nausea, it’s the brain fog and crushing fatigue.
“People who have suggested I’m on weight-loss injections and then telling me I’m lying – I’d be happy to show them my bank statements proving that I’ve spent £15,000 on investigations into what’s wrong.”
Although Melissa, 32, recognises the potential health benefits of drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro in certain circumstances, having been through such misery with her digestive system lately, she can’t get her head round why anyone who wasn’t severely overweight would contemplate turning to the jabs.
“I can’t fathom it. There will be situations where the benefits outweigh the risk. But there are so many people who are nowhere near that point, who just want to lose a few pounds, and that is such a bleak state of affairs.”
‘We seem to have fallen into a place where body positivity is dead’
She adds: “Now that I’ve witnessed first-hand the fragility of the digestive system, I know it’s not to be messed with. You’re playing with fire, if you bugger one bit up, the rest collapses.”
Melissa, who has grown an audience of more than 187,000 followers on Instagram as @The.confidentmama, says she’s lost “a lot of followers” over the last year – people who claim they no longer relate to her.
She admits she’s now worried about her future as a content creator, considering her personal brand has been built on the back of curves and loving the skin you’re in.
“It’s been nerve-wracking, 100%. I can’t work for some of the brands I was working with on a regular basis. My boobs have shrunk and I don’t fit the bras I was [promoting] so I’m losing income, too.”
The weight loss has also thrown up some personal conflict for Melissa, which she’s still working through.
“When I first started losing weight, I’d look in the mirror and go: ‘I look amazing!’ and I’d have to stop myself, because that’s what society wants – for me to be happy with a smaller body. And actually, I wasn’t happy. I felt dreadful.
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“I honestly feel like I’m afforded more respect now that I’m smaller, which is also depressing but not unsurprising, because we seem to have fallen into a place where body positivity is dead. We’ve gone backwards and I don’t like being a part of that.”
Melissa’s ordeal began shortly before Christmas 2023, when both she and River fell ill with a gastric bug on the same day.
While River bounced back, Melissa showed no sign of a recovery and made an appointment with her GP as soon as the surgery re-opened.
“The doctor put me on anti-nausea medication and gave me a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), which reduces acid in the stomach. I have since found out that chronic use of PPIs can cause SIBO, so rather than getting to the root of my problem, I was exacerbating it.”
Over the next few months, Melissa visited the GP as frequently as four times a week.
Her partner Robert, 43, works away as a cruise director, and the long spells of solo parenting were becoming increasingly gruelling.
An ultrasound of Melissa’s abdomen showed nothing wrong, and neither did an upper endoscopy, so after three months, she paid for a private gut health test, which reported an elevated level of methane.
Thanks to her meticulous research, Melissa knew this indicated that it might be worth doing a SIBO test, which was positive.
Since her diagnosis, Melissa has had to fight for treatment – she has amassed an encyclopaedic knowledge of her condition and is currently under the care of an NHS gastroenterologist, plus a team of private experts, as she works to find a solution.
“My nutritional therapist probably has more pictures of my poo in her phone than she’s had hot meals! But this is all money and I don’t have a bottomless pit.
“I need to be killing the bacteria and healing my gut faster than they can grow back. At the moment, I’m in the middle of a round of antimicrobials, which are like natural antibiotics, and I’m hoping for the best.”
‘I would go days not even being able to lift a fork to my face, let alone eat something’
Treatment is very much trial and error, and Melissa says that in the meantime her life is in limbo.
“It’s very isolating to have a gut condition and have to plan your whole life around it. I’ve felt guilt because I can’t go for long walks to the park with River, we have to stay close to home in case I get tired or sick.”
Melissa is keen to use her platform to raise awareness and urges anyone with unexplained digestive issues to at least investigate the possibility of SIBO.
“I want to get to a place where everyone has at least heard of it and knows to ask for a test. The more people talk about it, the more the NHS is going to have to listen and learn.”
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She says she’s hopeful of leading a normal life again, or at least a new normal she can be happy with.
“At the moment, I’m maintaining weight, it’s not falling off me like last year, when I’d go days not even being able to lift a fork to my face, let alone eat something.
“I probably won’t ever eat gluten or dairy again, but I’ve made my peace with that.
“I also think there’s likely to be quite a lot of trauma to work through once I’m out the other side. But I’m a pretty pragmatic lady and so I’m ready for that.”
