MasterChef’s Grace Dent reveals why she will NEVER take weight-loss jabs like fellow TV judge Prue Leith

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Grace Dent is reportedly in excellent health and has achieved her current fitness level without using weight-loss injections, unlike her colleague Prue Leith.

The new host of Masterchef, age 52, follows a mainly plant-based diet and exercises regularly. They’ve stated they will never use weight-loss drugs, citing potential unknown and concerning side effects.

Grace also mentioned that losing her appetite from the vaccinations would be a problem, as it would make it difficult for her to continue competing on MasterChef and doing her work as a food critic.

Prue Leith, the 85-year-old judge from The Great British Bake Off, recently shared that she tried the weight-loss drug Mounjaro. Although it did affect her appetite and energy, it unfortunately didn’t help her lose weight.

Grace shared with The Times that she has no intention of using weight-loss injections, explaining it would interfere with her work. While she understands the appeal – describing the drugs as feeling like a ‘magic’ solution – she also believes there are potential downsides that haven’t been fully considered yet.

She asserted that you can often tell if someone is using weight-loss drugs like Ozempic by changes in their appearance, specifically noting a certain look in their eyes that she believes isn’t genuine happiness.

In her 2021 book, Hungry, Grace openly shared her experiences with struggling with disordered eating.

In 2023, she had to leave the show ‘I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!’ due to medical reasons, as she was becoming increasingly unwell and visibly distressed.

Before appearing on the show, she had a long and difficult relationship with food, starting when she was nine years old. At one point, she dangerously restricted her diet to only 800 calories a day in an attempt to lose weight.

She described her childhood relationship with food in her book, recalling how unpleasant dry Ryvita crackers were and how she’d lie awake at night, hungry and dreaming of a breakfast of Special K cereal with skim milk.

I knew 800 calories a day wasn’t enough and could make me feel weak, but I was determined to fit into a catsuit by Saturday for a night at the Hacienda, dancing to Todd Terry. I just wanted to feel amazing again, even if only for a little while.

She once tried the Atkins diet, and later wrote about it, describing how it left her with a size ten figure and prominent cheekbones. However, she also noted it gave her terrible breath and sometimes caused her to briefly faint.

Grace explained she’d gone to such lengths to get in shape for television, wanting to appear camera-ready and weigh twelve pounds less than her usual, healthy weight.

As a lifestyle expert, I often hear about people’s complicated relationships with food, and it’s fascinating how early those feelings can begin. I recently learned that a well-known MasterChef star started thinking about calories as young as nine years old, and it continued all the way through her high school years – a really relatable experience for many, I think!

She explained that at that age, she and her friends became obsessed with calorie counting. They memorized the approximate calorie content of almost everything, per hundred grams, and remembered it for years.

I was really surprised to read in The Times that Prue actually ‘hated’ Mounjaro! It’s that prescription drug, also called Tirzepatide, that people are using for weight loss and to help manage Type 2 diabetes. I never would have guessed she felt so strongly about it.

She shared that her husband, John Playfair, has lost two stone thanks to the injections. Although he commented that she seemed to be losing weight, she joked that to her, it just meant she looked older and gaunt, and added that the treatments are costly.

Prue explained that she stopped taking the medication as soon as she could, finding it very unpleasant. She had previously expressed concerns about ongoing vaccinations, stating that repeated doses for life couldn’t be entirely healthy.

Prue described her experience with the drug, explaining that she tried it for two months but it had no effect. She completely lost her appetite, yet didn’t lose any weight – the scale showed no change at all. Every day, she weighed herself, but her weight remained exactly the same.

I really disliked it and felt constantly exhausted, likely because I wasn’t eating properly. John noticed I was losing weight, which made me feel like I looked old and gaunt. Plus, it was costly. As soon as I had the chance, I quit, as it was truly bad for my health.

Prue confessed she was bothered both by the vaccine not working for her and by the fact that the medication had led John to drink less.

She noted that he rarely drinks anymore, while she enjoys a glass or two of wine each evening. She typically has two or three glasses, but he’ll only have about half a glass, and even that he often leaves unfinished, which she feels is a shame.

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2025-11-16 17:49