Last October, controversy broke out between journalist Pilar Vidal and Carmen Lomana. Both Espejo Público collaborators had had a small confrontation during the program’s morning content meeting in which, according to Vidal, Lomana did not hesitate to call her “fat.”
According to Carmen Lomana, she had made the comment without bad intentions, just wanting to highlight that “‘fat’ is not healthy,” and although she apologized to the journalist, it seems that Vidal has not been able to forget it. Even less so when he has been fighting against being overweight for a long time, something he has talked about at length in Espejo Público.
Pilar Vidal sat down with Gema López to talk about her relationship with the scale, and how she was dealing with her “internal struggle” with her overweight, the result of a health problem and treatment that she had to face in the past and that she cannot manage recuperate.
The journalist admitted that the last years of her life “have not been comfortable” due to having gained so much weight due to medication she had to take. However, despite having put herself in the hands of her specialist and following another treatment to reduce her appetite and cope with her weight, she has not had the success she expected.
“I have asked for help, because I think I need it,” he confided. “This is a health issue. I’m not healthy right now and I want to be healthy.”
Vidal recognizes that being overweight is already affecting his daily life, and although he feels “strong”, he wants to “go back to being who I was.” At one point, the journalist can’t help but get emotional: “I have fixed many things in my life and I don’t want to abandon anything. I am taking care of my mental health but physical health is also very important.”
From the program they have proposed to the journalist to have the help of Dr. Rafael Guzmán, author of the book Your body, your home, who has offered to treat the journalist and find the cause of her overweight problem. The specialist pointed out her concern for her health, but also for the psycho-emotional sphere of the issue.
Guzmán does not believe that this is a question of putting him on a diet or taking a drug, but goes further, looking at aspects such as the quality of sleep, physical exercise or the number of meals he eats per day.
As Pilar Vidal made clear at the beginning of her interview, she only allowed her mother to be critical of her weight, but because she was someone she loved and respected. That’s why when Carmen Lomana called her “fat” last October, she felt very offended.
“He called me fat, let all of Spain know it. Mrs. Carmen Lomana, who is all about peace, love and super-education, called me fat.” Lomana soon tried to justify herself by ensuring that she was not talking about Vidal: “I didn’t call you fat because she wasn’t referring to you.”
“You don’t know if behind every person who is overweight there is a hormonal problem, one derived from a mental health problem or medication,” he continued. “I’ve never been like this, I’ve had a problem. I’m not going to tell it here. The people who need to know know it. Now I’m putting a solution to it.”