Fawn Clarke who grew up at Ballymaloe House, tells Colette Sheridan of the Evening Echo about her destructive attitude to food, how she overcame it
How she can now help others deal with it. HAVING achieved long-term freedom from food obsession, Fawn Clarke is on a mission to liberate people from unhealthy destructive eating habits through her work as a nutritional therapist.
Growing up in the grounds of world-renowned Ballymaloe house, the daughter of Rory and Hazel Allen, where her father ran the farm and her mother ran the house, food was a constant. But Fawn says that everyone else “was normal around food. When I started over-eating, I felt really ashamed.”
Fawn, a Ballymaloe-trained cook, used to work with her grandmother, the late Myrtle Allen.
“She was such a moderate eater. She could enjoy a little piece of cake whereas I was troubled after having one slice.
“It just created a craving for more and then, because of the shame, I became quite secretive about my eating.”
As a teenager, Fawn leaned more towards dieting to lose weight. But later, she overate and was bulimic. Food was her drug of choice. And in the pandemic, she has noticed that people’s issues with food are now heightened.
Growing up in the grounds of world-renowned Ballymaloe house, the daughter of Rory and Hazel Allen, where her father ran the farm and her mother ran the house, food was a constant. But Fawn says that everyone else “was normal around food. When I started over-eating, I felt really ashamed.”
Fawn, a Ballymaloe-trained cook, used to work with her grandmother, the late Myrtle Allen.
“She was such a moderate eater. She could enjoy a little piece of cake whereas I was troubled after having one slice.
“It just created a craving for more and then, because of the shame, I became quite secretive about my eating.”
As a teenager, Fawn leaned more towards dieting to lose weight. But later, she overate and was bulimic. Food was her drug of choice. And in the pandemic, she has noticed that people’s issues with food are now heightened.
Read more here: Echo Live
