Jonathan Tapper has credited his weight loss with helping his recovery from coronavirus.
The ‘Gogglebox’ star has revealed he was "really struggling" with the disease and his family – including wife Nikki and adult children Amy and Josh – also became ill after caring for him at home.
Speaking to Lorraine Kelly on ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’ on Friday (24.04.20), he said: "I definitely think just general well being, in every sort of way – losing weight is only a good thing, and I think because I did it helped me get through this horrible virus."
All four of the family members ended up ill with the virus, but Nikki admitted her partner definitely had the worst of it.
She explained: "I didn’t have it quite as bad as Jonathan. I felt very weak. We all lost our taste and our smell, actually apart from Jonathan.
"But the frightening thing was, John had seemed stable at the beginning, he did not move – literally for two weeks – off the couch. I sort of had to be OK to look after him.
"I had to make sure he was OK because was so poorly. The frightening thing was on about day nine, day 10, that’s when we kind of plummeted."
Jonathan discussed his experience of the disease, saying it left him "struggling for breath".
He recalled: "It wasn’t too great! The symptoms are a high fever and feeling pretty weak, mainly – and coughing.
"I literally couldn’t move at one point, couldn’t walk up the stairs – and if I did manage to get halfway up I was really struggling for breath."
Amy and Josh agreed that the most concerning thing for the family was figuring out who would be there to help if they all got ill.
He said: "I’m OK, I’m fine now … Because we were all trying to look after dad, we didn’t know if we were gonna get worse.
"If we were gonna get worse, who was there to look after dad? I think that was also the most difficult thing. If we were all bedridden, then who would we have to look after each other?"
Gogglebox’s Jonathan Tapper says weight loss helped coronavirus recovery
