Mel C has banned everyone from talking about diets in her house.
The former Spice Girl – who battled with an eating disorder during her time in the band – doesn’t allow anyone to discuss food in a negative light when they’re around her 10-year-old daughter Scarlet because she doesn’t want her to grow up and develop an unhealthy obsession with exercise and restrict her calorie intake.
Speaking in the November 2019 Mind Issue of Women’s Health, Mel – who was known as Sporty Spice – said: "I didn’t ever allow people to speak about diets in our house. Scarlet’s 10 years old now and I’m starting to notice that she’s more conscious of the way she looks, but I think one of the positives of having gone through having an eating disorder is that I’m very conscious of how I speak around her. That positive language – it’s habit now."
The 45-year-old singer has been very open about her struggles with clinical depression in the past and she believes it reached the pinnacle point in the 2000s.
She explained: "It all came tumbling down around the millennium when I was in LA with my family and I started to feel very low.
"I was struggling to get out of bed, I was binge eating, I couldn’t stop crying. I literally felt like I was going mad, so I came back to the UK and saw my GP, and the first thing he diagnosed me with was depression.
"It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was like, oh my gosh, it’s something, it has a name and it can be treated. That was day one of my recovery."
Mel still has weekly therapy sessions now and swears by them.
She said: "I know not everyone has the luxury to be able to do that, but it’s really important for me, even if sometimes I dread it. Often I’m not looking forward to it, but I can bitch and moan without judgement. It’s someone who you’re not going to offend. Therapy is bloody great – I recommend it to everybody."
Read the full Mel C interview in the November 2019 Mind Issue of Women’s Health, on sale from the 1st October 2019. Also available as a digital edition.
Mel C bans diet talk
