Emily Atack reveals she has put on weight since giving birth

Emily Atack has hit out at diet culture and body shaming, revealing she’s been pressured to snap back after giving birth. 

The actress, 34, welcomed her first child with scientist Alistair Garner, in June, a baby boy named Barney.

Since then, she revealed she’s been inundated with questions about her weight, yet has refused to rush back to the gym and is taking the time to enjoy motherhood. 

Speaking to Jamie Laing on his Great Company podcast, Emily shared: ‘There’s something quite liberating about having a baby. Your body goes through so much and you genuinely look at your body as a completely different vessel .

‘Being pregnant and being desexualised, looking at your body, you create a human inside you, then you give birth to your child – which by the way is mental – you get home and the first thing people say to you is, when are you going to get back in the gym?’ 

Emily Atack revealed she doesn’t diet and has put on weight since giving birth as she hit out at the pressure to snap back after pregnancy (pictured in September) 

Emily explained: ‘The last thing I want to do is go to the gym but the first thing you’re expected to do is get back into shape’ (pictured last year before she became pregnant)

Emily laughed: ‘Are you kidding? I’ve just created a human, I am exhausted! I’ve just tried to push a human out of me and had it ripped out of my stomach. 

‘The last thing I want to do is go to the gym but the first thing you’re expected to do is get back into shape. 

‘Where’s the congratulations for being a mother? Instead it’s when are you going to get the baby weight off… I’m not back at the gym at the minute, I’ve actually put on more weight since giving birth. I’m just enjoying this bit.’ 

Emily revealed that she’s always had a ‘healthy relationship’ with her weight but was unprepared for the comments she’d receive in her breakout role as Charlotte Hinchcliffe in The Inbetweeners. 

‘Everybody started talking about my weight,’ she explained. ‘There was a whole Facebook page dedicated to me/Charlotte Hinchcliffe. I couldn’t believe how awful it was, people talking about my weight. 

‘People would then try and be positive and say “at least we’re seeing curvier girls now playing sexier roles on television”. I didn’t even know I was curvy! 

‘I was a size eight, a tiny little body, but to some people it was the first time they’d seen a girl that wasn’t really, really skinny. They were used to seeing very underweight actresses playing the sexy girls.’ 

Speaking about the juxtaposition of posing for lads’ mags while simultaneously being trolled online, she added: ‘Some people were saying I’m sexy and beautiful and others saying I’m fat and ugly. It was so confusing 

‘Luckily I’ve never ever had any unhealthy eating habits, or dieting, I’m so f***ing lucky that I’ve never in my life. 

‘I don’t go on diets. There have been times in my life where I’ve thought I’ve got to lay off the wine for a bit and get in shape for this new role or for my mental health I’ve gone to the gym a bit more but I’ve never become thinner because of being called fat. I’ve had to train my brain.’

She joked that her figure now resembles Santa’s body, adding: ‘I’ve always said I look like Mrs Doubtfire in the rubber suit!’  

The actress, 34, welcomed her first child with scientist Alistair Garner, in June, a baby boy named Barney

Talk also turned to motherhood, with Emily opening up about the struggles she’s faced. 

‘Breastfeeding for me was very difficult,’ she explained. ‘I couldn’t breastfeed, it’s a difficult process. I got very ill with mastitis (inflammation of breast tissue) and I was lying there, my baby not being fed. 

‘It’s difficult because everyone’s going to think I’m a s**t mum because I can’t feed my baby. I’ve failed at the first hurdle.

.The irony that my tits have got me through my life and now they’re not f***ing working for me. when I really needed you!’ 

Revealing that she called upon her partner and relatives to try and help her out, she confessed: ‘At one point I had six people on my boob squeezing it and I was screaming in pain just trying to get one tiny drop of milk out. 

‘I just thought how lucky am I to have a family like this and partner like this but I still felt like I was a failure because I couldn’t feed my baby.’

Emily always had a ‘healthy relationship’ with her weight but was unprepared for comments she’d receive in her breakout role in The Inbetweeners (pictured with co-star Simon Bird)