Fitness expert Michelle Bridges takes on junk food, sugar industries in battle against 'crap food'.

By Ben Cheshire

At 45, fitness expert and first-time mother Michelle Bridges wants to tackle the fast food industry in the same way the tobacco industry was tackled 50 years ago.

Bridges said having her own child had encouraged her to put out some hard-hitting messages about the junk food and sugar industries.

“The truth of the matter is they sell crap food and make people sick,” she told the Australian Story program.

The star of TV’s The Biggest Loser weight loss reality program said it made her angry to see the effect of fast food on children.

“We’re now seeing children who potentially have a lifespan shorter than their parents — never before have we seen that globally,” she said.

“I’d like to get out there and start fighting the fight for others who can’t fight the fight.”

Humble beginnings in working class Newcastle

Bridges has been described as Australia’s most influential health and fitness expert, with a growing business empire that last year saw her named on the BRW list of Australia’s richest self-made women.

But she had humble beginnings as the daughter of a broken home in working class Newcastle, in New South Wales in 1970.

Money was so tight that her mother, Maureen Partridge, could afford only one school uniform.

“It was a case of wash it each night, hang it on a little inside line, get up in the morning and iron it, so she had a clean uniform each day,” Ms Partridge said.

Her family moved house so many times that Bridges was bullied as the perennial ‘new kid’ at school.

Then she discovered that sport offered her a way of dealing with the bullying and made her feel strong and free.

“I fell in love with the competition of netball, basketball, hockey, soccer, water polo and equally I fell in love with the commitment and the discipline of training,” Bridges said.

Taught fitness classes at school as a student

Her first move towards a career in the fitness industry came when she was just 14 and noticed that some of her classmates were choosing to skip school sports lessons.

Bridges went to the principal and asked if she could teach fitness to those children.

When that was a success, she began teaching adults at the local squash court in Nelson Bay, north of Newcastle.

“She had her little cassette player and she made up the music and the moves, she made up some posters and she put them on the walls,” Ms Partridge said.

“The first class she got about four or five people, and then the next class she had a few more.”

‘Thank goodness for my fitness’ to fight off sexual attacker

At 18, Bridges was sexually assaulted while going for a job interview at a restaurant in Taree.

“I was just looking for a part-time job, and the next thing I know the guy was attacking me and basically trying to rape me,” she said.

“I absolutely fought back with everything I had — thank goodness for my fitness — I got out and ran all the way to the police station.”

The police took a statement and then drove her to her mother, who was shopping nearby.

“She was strong and determined and said: ‘Mum, he wasn’t getting my handbag either — I grabbed that as well’,” Ms Partridge said.

The assailant was later jailed and Bridges saw a psychologist for several sessions before deciding she could not really afford it.

“In the end I realised I can’t carry this thing around, because if I do, it means that he still has control — so I had to at some point let it go,” Bridges said.

TV opportunity to reach people who do not go to gyms

By the time she was 25, Bridges was working for one of the biggest fitness companies in the world, teaching the latest techniques to their instructors in Australia and overseas.

But she came to the view that conventional fitness classes were doing little to combat the growing problem of obesity.

Television was an opportunity to reach those people who do not go to gyms.

In 2006, she was hired as a trainer on the Australian version of The Biggest Loser, with the job of helping a group of obese people lose weight.

“It might be seen that I have this agenda on people who are overweight or people who are deemed fat,” she said.

“Honestly, if you are happy where you are, more power to you.

“But I can tell you, I’m yet to meet someone who is morbidly obese and happy.”

Business empire took off

Bridges’ business empire began in 2007 with a book, and quickly expanded into DVDs, clothing and fitness equipment.

But the product that catapulted her into the BRW Rich List was an online training program.

Her former husband and business partner Bill Moore said many people would come to Michelle and say to her: “Oh, can you train me?”

“But of course it was completely unsustainable for her to train everyone,” he said.

“The idea of doing something online was a really critical one, and it was an incredible success from the very beginning.”

Juggling first-time motherhood at 45

In 2013, Bridges made headlines when she left her husband and began a new relationship with her television co-star, Steve Willis.

The couple now have a four-month-old son, Axel.

Willis said having a child caused Bridges to ask more questions of herself, as she juggled motherhood and a punishing career schedule.

“I think she really wants to put some more time into Axel and just watch that mother-child relationship flourish,” he said.

“Maybe take the foot off the pedal a little bit.”

Australian Story ‘Building Bridges’ airs tonight on ABC1 at 8:00pm.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.

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