Like Layla Moran I had weight-loss surgery - but I wouldn't admit it if I were in politics

When I tell people I have lost half my body weight, I receive uniform praise. Sometimes I see shock in their eyes, that the person in the photographs I am sharing with them is me. After all, I do look radically different. Even if I sometimes slip back into bad habits, I have – overall – fundamentally changed my life.

Yet when I tell people that I started my weight loss journey with bariatric surgery, the reaction can be somewhat different. There is a sense that I somehow cheated, that my achievement isn’t quite real or at least less worthy of note.