‘Who IS she?’ Even if you didn’t watch Big Brother, you’ll be familiar with Nikki Grahame’s infamous battle cry, first uttered with arms spread wide and a dramatic inflection in the diary room in 2006.
For those of us who came of age watching those early, genuinely pioneering series of Big Brother, Nikki – who died this month at just 38, after a long struggle with anorexia – was an icon. Straight-talking and prone to tantrums, she was endlessly entertaining and consistently endearing. Subsequent polls would reveal her to be the most popular housemate of all time.
Nikki went on to revisit the Big Brother house several times. As her friend and colleague (she was an ambassador for the charity Body Gossip, which I co-founded, and I also helped update her autobiography, Fragile, in 2012), I knew the reasons she was drawn to that TV show. Having been diagnosed with anorexia at the age of eight, Nikki had been in and out of inpatient services for most of her life. I never saw her calmer than when she was living in mental health facilities. There, someone else watched her every move, dictated her meal times and the amount of physical activity she could do – I think handing over responsibility for her routines gave her respite from her illness. She thrived on Big Brother because conditions were similar.
In the outside world, Nikki was vulnerable and unpredictable. You’d always be wondering when her illness would start speaking for her. I remember several occasions when waiting staff were berated for her cutlery or crockery being deemed not clean enough. Or times when she’d disappear abruptly, mid-sentence, believing she had to exercise that very second.
Someone once said of Nikki that she was ‘somehow both nine and 90 years old simultaneously’. She was tiny in stature and had a childlike view of the world, but anorexia ravaged her body. I was once cautioned not to hug her too hard, because osteoporosis meant I risked breaking one of her ribs.
Beneath her illness, Nikki was fun, hilarious and generous. There was something innately ridiculous about her propensity for hyperbole, yet she was aware of it. I remember once, when I was interviewing her for the book, she knocked over a glass of water while gesticulating wildly. She sighed elaborately before saying, ‘See, this is what my life is like, Natasha! This is what I have to deal with!’ I burst out laughing and so did she – she was always in on the joke.
While Nikki’s battle with anorexia had spanned decades and her brushes with death had been numerous, her family have said she particularly struggled during lockdown – as have many others. Rachel Egan, a campaigner with a diagnosis of anorexia, explained to me why she has also found lockdown hard. ‘Exercise has always been a huge part of my eating disorder, so gyms closing meant I had to work out at home, which can be much more triggering for me because I can do it 24/7. Eating disorders thrive in isolation and that’s why the past year has been so tough for people with conditions like anorexia.’
In fact, while eating disorders were already prevalent before lockdown – 16% of the population screened positive for a possible eating disorder according to a health survey in 2019 – hospitals have seen demand for their relevant services quadruple during the past year. Last week, a new report on body image by the Women and Equalities Committee found that lockdown had had a ‘devastating’ impact on those with, or at high risk of developing, eating disordersand intensified body image anxieties. And, despite the teenage stereotype, 70% of those requiring hospitalisation are adults: eating disorders don’t have an age limit.
Yet, like millions of others, Nikki found the help she so desperately required was simply not there. Instead, in the run-up to her death, her friends reported she had been crowdfunding for eating disorder support through a specialist clinic. Eating disorders consistently fail to be specifically acknowledged when the Government announces funding for mental health, and they plough on with an ‘obesity strategy’, which is known to be harmful to people in recovery because it demonises food and glorifies weight loss.
If we want to stop more preventable deaths, urgent funding and reform of services and policy are required. Write to your local MP – charity Beat has a template you can download and customise (beateatingdisorders.org.uk), donate to an eating disorder charity, or sign campaigner Hope Virgo’s Dump The Scales petition at change.org. The best way to honour the memory of my friend Nikki would be to bring about lasting change, so we don’t lose another bright soul like hers.