Lisa Snowdon believes perimenopause should be taught in schools to girls and boys, because it came as a "complete surprise" to her.
Lisa Snowdon calls for perimenopause education in schools
The 51-year-old TV presenter has admitted she was "totally uneducated" when she started having perimenopausal symptoms, because she hadn't been taught about it in school and her mum or nan hadn't discussed it with her.
Speaking on Dr. Zoe Williams' ‘The Doctor Will Hear You Now’ podcast, she said: "I mean, you don't get taught that at school do you? You get taught about puberty, and periods, and pregnancy, and then perimenopause/menopause is just never mentioned.
"You’re just sort of left to your own devices, just to try and figure it all out.
"My mum never spoke about it. My nan never spoke about it. I didn't have any information from any of my older family members.
"So it was a complete surprise for me. I was totally uneducated and it's been, you know, the last 10 years that I've had to find out for myself. Not only experiencing it, but just trying to learn from doctors and professionals and from other women.
"Everybody needs to learn it in school, boys definitely need to know, you know, their mums, their aunts, their sisters.
"That's the thing as well, yes, it affects us women directly, I think it's 52 per cent of the population, but indirectly, we've all got men that we know are people that we work with. So everybody needs to know about, it affects us all."
But Lisa has now encouraged other women who might be approaching perimenopause not to worry or to "struggle alone or in silence".
She added: "Firstly, don't be scared. Don't be scared, because we're so much more informed these days, we're so much more educated to recognise what's happening to us, that you won't have to struggle alone or in silence or to feel like you're losing your mind.
"I don't want you to be like, ‘oh, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming’, because then you're wasting your life and you're not living in the moment.
"So read up about it, speak to your friends, speak to your loved ones as and when you're starting to feel differently. ‘Things are changing’, have those conversations, don't bottle things up.
"Speak to your friends, because if you've got friends of similar age, or even younger or older, we all have a very unique perimenopause journey, and at different ages as well. It can happen younger, it can happen older.”
Lisa Snowdon appears on the latest episode of ‘The Doctor Will Hear You Now’, out now. ‘The Doctor Will Hear You Now’ is produced by Insanity Podcasts, part of Insanity Group.
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