As the resident doctor on ITV’s This Morning since the show’s first episode in 1988, Dr Chris is as familiar with meeting celebrities and taking part in live broadcasts as he is giving a medical one-to-one with one of his south Manchester patients. Dr Chris’s expertise as a general practitioner and world-leading expert in the fields of weight loss and nicotine addiction, among other fields, has seen him travel the world and pioneer leading medical techniques with patients. With a healthy appetite for research, Dr Chris strives to share his wealth of knowledge and expertise in medicine with the masses, as he reveals in the following conversation.
As one of Britain’s most recognisable faces of morning television, what do you find to be the most positive aspects of your role as This Morning’s resident doctor?
The greatest thing is having access to so many patients—the viewers. In my own job as a GP I might see one patient every 10 minutes and over the course of a busy day I might get to see 40 or 50 patients, whereas 10 minutes on This Morning and I’ve reached around two million viewers. That’s pretty amazing.
What are your memories of the very first episode of This Morning?
Back then the show was broadcast from the Albert Dock in Liverpool with Richard [Madeley] and Judy [Finnigan] as the main presenters. On the first show I vaccinated Richard and Judy’s daughter, Chloe Madeley, with the MMR vaccine. So what Chloe doesn’t know is that I’ve seen her bare bum! She was only a baby at the time, one-year-old I think, so she won’t remember it!
How did your spot on This Morning first come about?
The short story is that I was Richard and Judy’s GP in Manchester and through them I got asked to be the resident doctor of the show. Richard and Judy knew I was an expert in nicotine addiction and one day I received a phone call from Granada [ITV] asking if I’d do a live phone-in. I thought it was just going to be on the topic of nicotine addiction, but I’d misunderstood. They wanted me to talk about anything and everything medical related—whatever the callers were phoning in about. When they told me that, I said: ‘No way!’ Eventually, through my kids’ persuasion I changed my mind and 25 years later I’m still here!
How has your role on the show evolved over the years?
I used to choose the topics, but now it’s more of a team effort. But thank goodness everyone is interested in health, no matter what the topic is. Topics are now often decided depending on what’s in the news. When the show first started we would select the health topics in advance, whereas now we are very news reactive. For example, I might find myself talking about items that were in the papers this morning.
In the beginning we would have experts on the show to talk about specific health conditions. The problem was they would talk in medical jargon and the viewers wouldn’t understand—I’d have to re-explain everything. The trick is to get key messages across to the public without bamboozling them. It’s important to keep it simple, that’s why I go by the ‘10-year-old test’. I’m not insulting the intelligence of the public, but if a 10-year-old can understand it, everyone can, so that’s how we approach and explain medical topics.
You’ve performed medical examinations on live television, including breast and testicle examinations. Was this your idea and what was the viewers’ reaction?
The first controversial thing I battled for, and for some time, was a live breast examination. At first the editors and producers said no, but I battled and battled and eventually they said, ‘Okay then, as long as it’s done in the best possible taste.’ It was groundbreaking television, having never been done before, globally. After I’d performed the examination we had all sorts of reactions. Some viewers called in to say how they found it disgraceful that we showed a bare breast on morning television, while others wrote in to thank us, saying because of the show they had done a self-examination and found a lump and caught breast cancer early.
What other live examinations have you performed on the show?
Well, after the breast examination I said I wanted to do a testicular examination and I came up against a brick wall with that one! I kept asking and eventually they said yes, but there were very strict stipulations that we had to stick to. It had to be done in the best possible taste, we had to use a hospital-style screen so it looked clinical and the man was not allowed to show his penis, which I thought was funny considering we were going to be showing his testicles. We had to be very careful because we’d have been fined £30,000 if we’d broken the rules. After the show had taken place, an old lady called in and said ‘I think it’s disgusting. I was sat at home eating my sausages and it put me right off my breakfast!’ Well, I had to laugh at that one! On the positive side, we had parents calling in to the show asking us to show it again so they could show it to their son, nurses using it in training and many, many viewers learnt how to check themselves properly.
Can you tell us about the weight loss system you applied to help This Morning’s super slimmer Charlie Walduck shed 30 stone back in 2004?
I said to Charlie, ‘I’m going to give you two things to do and that’s all.’ I told him to look at food labels, read everything on the label and not to eat anything that contains more than three percent fat. The second thing I told him was to exercise just by walking. At first he had problems as he was verbally abused in the street because of his size and weight, so he didn’t want to go out. So I told him I’d help him and take him out everyday. To begin with, we’d just walk five yards out of the house and then back again. But as each day went by, I got him to walk further and further. And of course, the further he walked one way, the further he would have to walk to get home again!
Charlie inspired thousands of viewers and ended up losing 30 stone and running the London marathon in 2006. He lost 20 stone in the first 12 months. Usually, I’d recommend only losing 1-2lbs each week to maintain the weight loss, but with Charlie, he was so big and because we were doing it for the show, he lost a lot more.
What’s your advice for anyone wanting to lose weight?
It’s not just about diet—walk as much as possible. The key to success in weight loss is to watch your mouth (and what you put in it) and use your feet.
You’ve worked with many charities over the years. Which ones are you currently working with?
I’ve worked with Coeliac UK for a long time, even before I was diagnosed with coeliac disease myself. I work with lots of charities, though, including skin cancer charities, bowel cancer charities, lung cancer charities and The Butterfly Group, a charity set up to help care for those with immune, auto immune and chronic disorders.
As a sufferer of coeliac disease, do you have a particular gluten-free recipe that you like?
I’m very fond of hot and spicy food, especially curries. People think you can’t eat curry if you’re on a gluten-free diet but you can.
What are your favourite gluten-free products on the market?
I’ve tested all of the products out there but you have to find out what’s best for you. You can get some gluten-free foods on prescription but there’s a lot of fuss about removing them from prescription, because many people don’t understand why you should be able to get food on prescription. It’s a medical condition and if you can get Nicotine Replacement Therapy on prescription, you should also be able to get gluten-free foods on prescription.
You have already talked about being diagnosed with coeliac disease, have you had any other health scares?
I’ve had skin cancer twice, once on my face and on my back, too. Back in the ’70s, when we didn’t know that skin cancer was caused by the sun, I used to have a sunbed and lie on it everyday and then we’d go on holiday with the family and I’d top up my tan. I was always very deeply tanned in those days. One day I was shaving and noticed something on my cheek and it turned out to be skin cancer. I decided to do the operation to remove the tumour on the TV show—it’s the best way to show the viewers what it looks like and what the procedure to remove it involves. It was the size of a 50 pence piece.
Then a couple of years later my wife who is a nurse said to me: ‘you’ve got a mark on your back like the one on your face.’ I got it checked out and removed. I was lucky because out of the three types of skin cancer, squamous cell carcinoma; basal cell carcinoma and melanoma, I had the second type, basal cell carcinoma, which is the most treatable and least threatening kind.
You’re recognised internationally as an expert in smoking cessation and nicotine addiction. Why did you become so involved and passionate on this particular subject?
It was all because a patient came to see me one day asking for help. He stumped me, because I didn’t know how to help him. My professional pride took over and I said to him, ‘come back to me in a week and I will help you.’ And for a week I researched solidly to find a way of helping him. I came across aversion therapy, which is a form of psychological treatment. This involves a person smoking one cigarette after another until the person vomits. This is then followed by electric shock treatment, too. It worked and after that I saw as many patients as I could, treating them at home for nicotine addiction.
What do you think is the biggest health risk facing the nation today?
One of the biggest health risks is a lack of vitamin D. I don’t take many supplements but the one I do take is vitamin D. It’s a ticking time bomb—kids are now getting rickets because they’re lacking vitamin D. People need 15 minutes each day in the sunlight, or if you can’t get sunlight, oily fish contains a lot of vitamin D.
The medical profession has learnt a lot about vitamin D in the last 10 years alone. There’s been a lot of research about links to heart disease and cancers. We still don’t understand the full power of vitamin D.
How do you combat stress?
Gardening! I love gardening and I have so many plants, my wife goes mad because I’ll come home with yet more plants. Gardening is a great stress reliever.
• Since starting out as a medical practitioner in Manchester’s student quarter of Fallowfield over 40 years ago to becoming one of the most famous doctor’s on British television today, our Guest Editor Dr Chris can be seen regularly on ITV’s weekday show This Morning, when he tackles the nation’s health and medical concerns.
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