Why do we care what Ajay Rochester eats?

Listening to the tone of Ajay Rochester’s voice as she speaks to radio hosts Kyle and Jackie O, you’d assume she was gushing about the latest episode of Keeping Up with The Kardashians.

But she’s not.

What the former Biggest Loser host is actually talking about is her “disgusting” body and unhealthy lifestyle. The “big plate sized pancakes, three bacon strips, a plate sized hash brown… two sausages, two eggs” she had for breakfast and the “burger and fries” she washed it down with.

The Daily Telegraph describes Ajay Rochester as a “serial publicity hound and compulsive eater”.

The public knows her as the woman who has publicly struggled with her weight since she first appeared on a  TV show called Larger Than Life almost a decade ago.

Ajay has written numerous dieting books including The Lazy Girl’s Guide to Losing Weight and Getting Fit. Pictures of Ajay in bikinis are regularly splashed across pages of women’s magazines. And last year she appeared on Excess Baggage (which was Channel 9’s answer to The Biggest Loser) not as the host, but as a contestant.

And through all of this time, her weight has fluctuated by upwards of 40kg at a time.

On the Kyle and Jackie O show yesterday, Ajay admitted she’d gained around one kilogram a week over the past year. She went into excruciating detail about what she eats on a daily basis – and the ‘skinny’ clothes she owns but never wears.

Jackie: Last time we saw you, you were on Excess Baggage. What led you from hosting a weight loss show to being a contestant on one?

Ajay: Well I got a call in LA saying would you like to do it. Supposedly when it was pitched to me, it would delve into the more emotional issues and I have always battled my weight and it has always been an emotional baggage kind of thing, so I really really looked forward to dealing with that … but we didn’t.

Kyle: What happened on there instead?

Ajay: Well we shot a really great getaway special. And travelled around a lot. And bitched a lot with Mr Paparazzi and that’s about it really.

Jackie: So it obviously didn’t help you in terms of the weight loss?

Ajay: No not at all.

Jackie: I did read in a magazine your food diary which I’ll get to in just a second. What’s your relationship with food?

Ajay: I would want to marry it.

Jackie: So it’s hard for you to just stop eating junk food.

Ajay: If junk food was a sex aid I would be a very satisfied woman.

Jackie: Did you sneak food?

Ajay: I’ve never really hidden it. I would do the stupid lemon detox diet before I’d go on air, so I’d drink lemon juice for 3 weeks and lose 15 kilos and then just eat nothing during production.

Kyle: That doesn’t work does it?

Ajay: No because then out of production you are just like ‘Oh yeah, all you can eat buffet, are you ready!’

Kyle: I don’t know about you, but I’ve slowly put on 5 kilos every year.

Jackie: What’s your average per year?

Ajay: In the last year I have put on about a kilo a week. So that’s 48 kilos. Yeah really. I’m huge. I’m so fat it’s disgusting.

Ajay: If there is an emotion, I’ll use that eat. Any emotion. If I’m extremely happy, I celebrate by eating crap food, If I’m really sad and depressed, I’ll eat crap food. That’s why I was really looking forward to a show that actually delved into that issue. Obviously Biggest Loser is a fat camp. Let’s lock up the fridge’s and lock you up and train you X amount of hours a day and punish you and make you feel humiliated and give you a 200,000 dollar carrot to do anything to your body to get to that finish line. Of course you’d do whatever it takes! But it doesn’t fix anything.

Kyle: That can’t be done day to day.

Ajay: The majority of the people swing back. I stayed slim on camera and then when there wasn’t that pressure there….

Jackie: If you had a bad food day, what would your day be?

Ajay: To be really blunt I can eat a whole heap of crap in one day. There is this place here called ‘Norms’. ‘Norms’ is called ‘Norms, Bigger Better Breakfast’. So it’s breakfast for 3 people. Two pancakes, big plate sized pancakes, three bacon strips, a plate sized hash brown, a plate, I’m not talking the little macca’s ones, two eggs, two sausages. So I’ll eat that. Then I just lie down all day because I can’t move because my arteries are so clogged. And then I drive past ‘Karl’s’ and get a burger and fries.  I’m laughing about it. But it’s really serious because I am eating myself to death.

Kyle: Do you sometimes just cry about it?

Ajay: Oh my god of course. Seriously my house looks like somebody else lives in there. There are all these beautiful clothes, because I have lots clothes from Biggest Loser. So if you open my cupboard you would go, ‘well she must be the cleaner that big fat thing, and where is the skinny girl who lives here?’ Because I live in sweatpants. You know the saddest thing was, when I got home from Excess Baggage I thought ‘oh yeah I did alright, I won, I lost a bit of weight.’ I came home and I tried on my skinny jeans and I was still too fat for my skinny jeans.

Jackie: So those pictures we see of you on the beach, they come up regularly in women’s magazines, a lot of people say that they are set up and that you tip off the paparazzi and sell them, is that true?

Ajay: No I would like to get paparazzi’ed when I actually look a bit better!

Ajay is staunchly aware that she has a problem. That much is obvious when she says: “I’m laughing about it. But it’s really serious because I am eating myself to death.”

She’s obviously facing a tremendous battle.

She’s deeply unhappy – and yet at the same time she’s also reaping the commercial benefits from her situation.

“Fancy a bottle of heart disease?” she asks she she pours a whole bottle of oil into a saucepan. “I’m going to introduce you to my heroin; my drug of choice,” she says as she sits down with producers to a home-made meal of french fries wrapped in bread, butter, mayonnaise and tomato sauce.

“I hosted one of the biggest TV shows in the world. And I sit here and eat myself to an early grave,” she says.

It’s car crash kind of viewing. And there’s a big audience for it.

The question we want to ask today, is why does anyone care? Why do we watch? Why do we care what Ajay Rochester eats? Why was the Kyle and Jackie O show interview the first thing the Mamamia team talked about when then arrived in the office yesterday morning? Why are we writing a post about it?

Well, our brief is to cover what everyone’s talking about today and the reality is – that along with civil unions in New Zealand (yay!) and the aftermath of the tragic bombings in Boston – this IS making news. But what is it about the human psyche that makes us so unnaturally interested in what one woman eats?

Are we just interested in other people? Is it because of Ajay’s candid nature? Is it the way she admits to an eating disorder with a high-pitched, happy voice?

Mamamia asked clinical psychologist Julie Malone that exact question. In her response to us, she said it seems Ajay is “in constant conflict with herself, and she is confused about what she values as important.”

And the reason we’re all watching and listening to hear heartbreak? This again from Julie:

It is disheartening but true, that many people place too much value on what shape or size their body is. Unfortunately there are many people in the public that share something in common with Ajay Rochester, in that she continues to yo-yo diet and loose and regain weight, whilst also engaging in unhealthy eating behaviours such as restricting then binging.

Whilst all of this is occurring, she speaks extremely critically of herself, which is frighteningly common for other people too. The cycle of shame and self criticism leads to food restriction which leads to binging (overeating) which results in more shame, and the cycle goes on and on.

Many people can identify with what Ajay Rochester is experiencing, and perhaps they do not feel so alone in their journey, or perhaps it gives them inspiration (unfortunately to keep yo-yo dieting).

An alternative to being interested in what Ajay Rochester eats and does, would be to embrace the attitudes of other celebrities such as Julie Goodwin and Chrissie Swan. Julie Goodwin previously declined an offer from Jenny Craig and Chrissie Swan discontinued her relationship with Jenny Craig after the birth of her second child.

Julie Goodwin and Chrissie Swan value other issues in their lives and have found self acceptance and love, and do not subscribe to societal expectations to be ‘super skinny’. I can be certain that they lead a much healthier, happier life and are free of the shame cycle.

Why do you think the public is so interested in what celebrities eat?