IBS Made Lottie Drynan Hide Her Stomach. Now She Teaches Self-Esteem in Schools.

In December 2019 Lottie Drynan wrote a shopping list for people like her, and she began on the floor. “I’ve spent so many hours/weeks/probably even months crying on the floor of my poured-out wardrobe because nothing fits my poor little bloated belly,” she wrote on her blog, The Tummy Diaries. The first item on the list was the elasticated midi-skirt: “Pretty much what I live in.” Nearly seven years later her Instagram bio opens with “elasticated waistbands are my love language” and, below it, “self esteem & body image speaker (incl. schools).”

On Thursday, October 15, 2026, she posted from one of those schools: “I adore all the schools I visit and these workshops are some of my greatest joys but wow, this one was so so special.” Drynan is a British creator whose IBS symptoms began in her teens. She is a patient and a creator, not a doctor or a dietitian.

The diagnosis: Eight years, and every sort of scope

“It took around eight years to get diagnosed,” she said in a 2021 podcast interview published with a full transcript; the problems began when she was “like 17-18,” with “a lot of bloating.” “I had every sort of oscopy going and some other bits and bobs. And then they finally said no, we’re pretty happy that it’s IBS.” In April 2018, closer to the moment, she had counted “four years of pain, tears, tests and frustration” before being told “it is just IBS,” and called the answer “a major relief.”

The bloating was the part other people could see. In a January 2020 post that opens with a trigger warning, she wrote: “I remember jumping out of bed every morning and running to the mirror to assess how flat my stomach was and asking myself ‘am I bloated or is this actually fat?’” Her summary: “the psychological pain I have felt from IBS has been far worse than even the worst flare-up.” Asked in 2021 what she wished people without IBS understood, she answered: “I would probably say, stop asking people if they’re pregnant!”

Her January 2020 post also describes a fear of food that became an eating disorder lasting around three years, and the counselling that followed. “It took a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of commitment but I got there in the end,” she wrote. In the UK the eating disorder charity Beat runs helplines for anyone affected.

The account: Recipes first, then the photo she was scared to post

The Tummy Diaries began in 2017 as a recipe blog for the low FODMAP diet she had been recommended, before she had a firm answer: that September she described her condition as “probably IBS or something similar so still testing.” In 2020 she wrote: “yup, The Tummy Diaries kinda saved me!” Her About page now notes that she is “no longer on the low FODMAP diet.”

As she came to feel part of a community, she said in 2021, she started “sharing me and the face behind these photos,” and then the bloating. “At the time, it was probably maybe like five comments, but I was like wow, other people are saying, Oh gosh, I get this too, I didn’t know I wasn’t the only one.” And: “I thought are people gonna think this is disgusting, but they weren’t, everyone was so lovely. More people related to it, and then people started tagging me in their bloat photos.”

A hashtag followed. By December 2019 she had “created the hashtag #mybloatedwardrobe to share some of my favourite outfit ideas that will help you feel confident AND comfortable, even during an IBS flare-up.” The advice was about clothes, not cures: smock dresses that “give you all the room your bloat could ever need,” and the admission that, “up until the point I valued my internal organs, I was never a fan of elasticated skirts.”

The stage: One outfit, two bodies, the London Palladium

In August 2024 BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour asked why so many people feel bad about their tummies and brought in Drynan, who “has learned to love her rounded stomach.” The clip she and the programme posted together carried the line “I’d say all of us have a bit of a tummy!”

By then she had a second act with her friend Laura Adlington. Same Dress Different Bodies puts one outfit on both of them; Woman’s Hour, in February 2025, described two friends who could not find clothes they felt comfortable in, “Lottie because of bloating caused by IBS, and Laura because she was limited by what was available in plus sizes.” On Sunday, March 23, 2025, they played the London Palladium. Their joint advice to their younger selves, given to LW Theatres: “To give a big middle finger to fashion rules.” Her post the next day: “WHAT A BLOODY DAY. The London Palladium!! Just…wow!”

The schools: Body image, self-worth and the feed

Her agency, Matchstick Group, says she “regularly delivers talks in schools, appears on panels, and speaks at corporate events on subjects including body image, self-worth, and the influence of social media.” A secondary school’s news page in November 2024 said she “captivated our students with a powerful session on body positivity.” An October 2025 TikTok tagged #bodyconfidence and #recovery reads: “proof it was never about the body…. It was about the happiness I thought the body would bring.”

The audience: Half a million on Instagram

When we read her profiles on October 19, 2026, @lottiedrynan had 521,704 followers on Instagram, where the account is verified, and 56,400 on TikTok, with 1.3 million likes over 214 videos. Her two most-played TikToks that we checked are about bloating: a December 2021 video about waking up bloated, at 3.6 million plays, and the jeans-to-the-pub video, at 1.2 million. Same Dress Different Bodies has its own Instagram account, at about 29,100 followers.

What the research actually measured: How common IBS is, and why a stomach visibly swells

Her shop’s About page counts her among “the one-in-five of us living with irritable bowel syndrome”; the number depends on the definition. The Rome Foundation Global Study (Sperber and colleagues, 2021) surveyed 73,076 adults in 33 countries: under the current, stricter Rome IV criteria, 4.1% of internet respondents and 1.5% of people interviewed at home had IBS; under the older Rome III questions, 10.1% and 3.5%. Across the gut-brain disorders it counted, women were affected more often than men, and the disorders went with lower quality of life and more doctor visits.

A 2021 clinical review separates bloating, the feeling of trapped gas and pressure, from distension, “a measurable increase in abdominal girth,” and notes that “no regimen has been consistently successful.” Why the belly pushes out was tested in a 2011 study by Villoria, Azpiroz and colleagues: the same volume of gas went into the colon of 20 people with bloating and 15 healthy volunteers. In the healthy group the diaphragm relaxed and the front of the abdomen firmed up; the patients distended more, their diaphragm contracted when it should have relaxed, and part of the abdominal wall let go. The authors called it abdomino-phrenic dyssynergia, muscles around the belly working against each other.

A 2015 study (Barba and colleagues) scanned 45 patients, 42 of them women, during real episodes of visible distension. The diaphragm sat about 12 mm lower than in their scans without distension and the waist measured 32 mm more, about 3 centimetres (our conversion). The authors called the distension “a behavioral response” of the chest and abdominal wall, and in 15 patients breathing-guided biofeedback reduced it. Our reading: the shape in her photos is not only gas.

How symptoms shape body image is less studied. In a small 2026 study of 40 adults with IBS, worse symptoms went with more dissatisfaction with the body, more so in women. Forty people is a small sample, and it shows an association, not a cause.

The disclosure map: Where her interests sit

Her agency’s page lists partnerships with Boots, Simply Be, New Look, Symprove and Sainsbury’s, and presenting work for Superdrug and the Postcode Lottery; we did not review those campaigns. Her profiles link to an affiliate storefront for her outfits, and paid posts are labelled, such as three 2026 TikToks for Next that open with “ad.” Through her small online shop, You’ve Gut This, she has sold a printed journal since May 2020. Her blog says she is “not a medical professional” and urges anyone with ongoing or painful bloating to “take a trip to your GP – and do not give up until you have answers!” Gut Health Times has no relationship with Lottie Drynan, Matchstick Group or any brand named here.

How we checked this: Sources and method

We read her own words at source on October 19 and 20, 2026: The Tummy Diaries blog and its About page, the You’ve Gut This About page, a 2021 podcast interview with a full transcript, her TikTok captions and her Instagram bio and October captions read logged out. The BBC’s Woman’s Hour pages, LW Theatres and WhatsOnStage gave the broadcast and stage dates. Press, including a 2020 Business Insider profile, was a cross-check only. PubMed papers: 32294476, 32246999, 21540894, 25500424 and 41897168. She did not review this article. This article is educational, describes what the cited sources say, and is not medical advice.