Bernard O'Shea: The Dad Bod Diaries

Week 1 — I can’t fit into the changing room, never mind the jeans

Bernard O'Shea: 'I realised very quickly: I wasn’t just struggling with the jeans. I was struggling with the changing room itself. The bloody room wouldn’t fit me.' File photo

There are many ways to discover the truth about your midlife body, but a department-store changing room on a weekday afternoon is not one I’d recommend.

My youngest son looked at me and, with the sheer honesty that only a child can deliver, told me I look like Humpty Dumpty. And not even in a playful way. It was clinical. “Daddy, you look like Humpty Dumpty.”

I could’ve taken it as a cute moment and filed it away under ‘kids say gas things’. Except the next day I caught a glimpse of myself on the replay of The Today Show on RTÉ 1.

I’d never normally have the compulsion to watch myself back on anything I’ve ever been in as nine times out of 10 it ends in self-loathing. This time it wasn’t nine; it was a full 10. The second the camera cut to me, I made a noise. A noise from deep inside my body — from a part of myself that remembers being thin, being young, being able to bend without sound effects.

The camera didn’t add 10 pounds — life had. A decade of each late-night biscuit, every extra slice, every “sure I’ll start Monday again”, “tomorrow will be better” ... knowing full well I’d be eating a giant Dairy Milk that night like a guilty night feaster.

Watching myself back, I didn’t just dislike how I looked — I felt detached from the reflection of me I saw. It was like seeing a cousin you vaguely recognise but haven’t seen in years. There was a sadness in it, and I don’t mean that in a big emotional Oprah way — I mean my stomach genuinely looked sad. Downturned. Heavy. Like it had heard bad news.

And then, as if humiliation came in threes, I decided to go jeans shopping.

I don’t know who I thought I was that week. A man with self-esteem, clearly. A man unafraid of changing rooms. A man who believed that trousers were things you simply ‘went in and bought’. But for reasons unknown — possibly madness — I drove to an outlet store, parked the car, got out, with a confidence I did not have the physique to support, and walked into a shop where attractive people wandered, effortlessly comfortable in their bodies.

Bernard O'Shea: 'My youngest son looked at me and, with the sheer honesty that only a child can deliver, told me I look like Humpty Dumpty. And not even in a playful way. It was clinical.'

Changing rooms used to be the size of a small one-bed flat. Three walls, a curtain, some hooks, dodgy lighting — but manageable. You could move. You could breathe. Raise a small family. You could put your leg into trousers without re-arranging your internal organs. But now? Now, changing rooms are designed by people who clearly have planned some bizarre revenge on the average shopper. There are no longer rooms. They are NASA-style space pods. Capsules. Wooden barrels standing upright. Vertical coffins with a mirror for added shame.

The one I entered was barely big enough for me to breathe. I’m convinced these things were originally designed as storage, and someone said: “Sure, lash in a mirror and let the public in.”

I realised very quickly: I wasn’t just struggling with the jeans. I was struggling with the changing room itself. The bloody room wouldn’t fit me, and what’s worse, it was the second time this had happened in the same place. The flashback “I’ve been in this exact spot before”.

My mother used to make me try on clothes in shops when I was young — in the middle of the aisle, beside a shelf of neatly folded jumpers, in full view of strangers from the parish. “Try it on there — sure who’s going to be looking at you?” my mother used to say.

Everyone, Mam. Absolutely everyone. I even built one of my first stand-up routines around that line 25 years ago because half the country had parents who believed privacy was optional.

Now, at 46, I’d nearly welcome that kind of public humiliation again — trying on trousers in Dunnes between a rack of jackets and a bin of reduced socks. That would be paradise compared to squeezing myself into a changing-room barrel, trying to inhale without hitting a wall.

I brought in three pairs of 38s — my so-called ‘safe size’. None fit. The first stopped at the thighs, the second wouldn’t close, and the third wouldn’t even open properly. Out I went for the 40s. No joy there either. The 42s were my last hope, and even they refused with the kind of confidence only denim can have: “Not today, lad.”

Standing there, trousers caught midway up my legs, sweat gathering in places it shouldn’t, the humour drained away, and the fact settled in quietly: What has happened to me? Not dramatically — just honestly.

What happened to my habits? My health? My ability to put on trousers without needing an oxygen break?

And that’s when it hit me: this is my last go. My final ‘Day One’. The only difference this time is I’m doing the thing I’ve shunned my entire adult life — accountability.

I thought to myself, if I write this every week — honestly, painfully, openly — I have a chance. Which is why I’ve named this column the Dad Bod Diaries.

It isn’t about a six-pack. It isn’t about vanity. It isn’t about looking good on TV (Possibly is. Vanity plays a supporting role)

It’s about a 17-stone man who couldn’t fit into a changing room — never mind the jeans — finally realising the changing room wasn’t the problem.