ITV This Morning's Poppy O’Toole shares awful body-shaming comments and says 'going to call you out'

Chef and TV star Poppy O’Toole has opened up about receiving hurtful comments about her body online. The proud Brummie, 30, appears regularly on This Morning and also judges the BBC show Young MasterChef.

But she admitted she struggles with body-shaming comments from trolls. Speaking out about the tough criticism, she said: "People talk about weight all the time, whether it’s on me or anyone, but my goodness, I’m just a chef, I didn’t think I was going to have to be talking about body positivity, but here we are, because I want it to be better for everyone.

"It’s not constant, but sometimes it’s: ‘She should put the potato down and pick up a salad’. Literally, I’m just trying to make some nice recipes, yeah I have a double chin – deal with it."

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Poppy has used her Instagram platform of 1.1 million followers to call out the behaviour. She added: "I’m really lucky and privileged to have this sort of platform so I don’t want to be silent on things.

"Luckily I’ve always had a very healthy relationship with the way I am, the way I look. It’s just like, why is your opinion even here? So I’m going to call you out on it, which I do quite enjoy.

"It’s probably the easier route to be like, don’t reply, delete the comment. But that comment could hurt somebody else, and those people need to know that they can’t do that."

Hailed the Potato Queen, Poppy shot to social media fame during the Covid pandemic, after working in restaurants since she was 17 and later in Michelin star kitchens. In August 2020 she was made redundant, but that month a video she made on crispy cube potatoes went viral on TikTok and launched her online presence, followed by her series ’25 days of potato recipes to get you through a second lockdown’ in November that year.

Now O’Toole has three cookbooks under her belt, including her latest – Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Slow Cooker Cookbook. She said: "If the pandemic never happened, I don’t think I never, ever left my job, so I’m super lucky to be in this position.

Poppy Cooks: The Actually Delicious Slow Cooker Cookbook by Poppy O’Toole is published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Available now.