Seoige admits she feels under pressure to stay slim

TV presenter Gráinne Seoige has revealed she has to work hard to maintain her new svelte figure.

And the 37-year-old, who is fronting a new documentary on RTÉ on the cult of size zero this week, said celebrities do feel under pressure to stay slim.

The former newsreader also spoke about her reporting job on the BBC’s new Watchdog-style show, That’s Britain, which will examine consumer gripes such as the scourge of junk mail.

In an interview on the Ray Foley Show on Today FM, the mother-of-one said she has toned up since undergoing a new training regime.

“I’m not size zero,” she claimed.

“I got fit but I didn’t lose a lot of weight. I go the gym twice a week and do a mixture of a bit of boxing, weight and running. I work hard.

“People in the public eye are under pressure because of the stuff that is said about their weight.

“What we’re joking about has been written about me. It’s an issue that everybody talks about.”

The star, who is also fronting a new RTÉ Two documentary series on size zero, tattoos and child stars, said she doesn’t believe Irish people have the right attitude to talented people.

“We need to get over that in this country because actually people are entitled to be talented and get on with it and do as much as they can with it. I think that is a relic in Ireland.

“All these shots of Rory McIlroy playing golf as a kid are trotted out and it’s great. It’s OK when it is sport but when it is performing arts or acting people think it is precocious.”

The four-part RTÉ Two series, entitled Gráinne Seoige’s Modern Life, examines women’s attitude to weight, internet dating, body modification and talented young kids.

During her research for the show Seoige said she was horrified by pro-ana sites which encourage young girls to become anorexic.

“I had never seen them before and they are frightening. Their representatives of what they think is beautiful is painfully, painfully thin young girls and it is frightening. It’s a huge issue.”

The presenter also told how she delved into dating websites for research for the series but didn’t sign on herself.

“The dating one was good craic actually. What I learned was that there was stigma to internet dating up until recently but the new generation of youngsters coming up are constantly socially networking so signing up to a dating agency is nothing to them.

“Whatever you are into you can find people into like minded things. I didn’t sign up,” she added.

She also laughed off Foley’s jokes about her dating Kerry GAA star the Gooch Colm Cooper, and celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin, following recent reports that she was in a relationship with Paul Galvin.

The Galway mum also told how she was almost tempted to get a tattoo during the show on piercing and body art.

“By the time I finished making the show I was dealing with people who had a lot of body art and I started to feel a bit bland and a bit plain beside them.”

“I saw a few lovely tattoos and people wore them well but I couldn’t see them on myself.”