Body believed to be missing TV presenter Michael Mosley found on Greek island

ATHENS: Police said that a body believed to be that of missing British TV presenter Michael Mosley was found on a Greek island Sunday morning.

A police spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation, said the body was found on a rocky coast by a private boat and that formal identification was pending.

Mosley went missing on the island of Symi Wednesday afternoon after going for a walk.

Lefteris Papakalodoukas, the island's mayor, told The Associated Press he was on the boat with members of the media representatives when they saw a body some 20 metres above the Agia Marina beach a little after 10 am. “We zoomed with the cameras and saw it was him,” he said.

The mayor said that the body appeared to have fallen down a steep slope, stopping against a fence and lying face-up with a few rocks on top of it. The body had a leather bag in one hand, said Antonis Mystiloglou, a cameraman with state TV ERT, who was also on the boat.

Mosley, 67, is well-known in Britain for his regular appearances on television and radio and his column in the Daily Mail newspaper. He is known outside the UK for his 2013 book “The Fast Diet,” which he co-authored with journalist Mimi Spencer.

The book proposed the so-called “5:2 diet,” which promised to help people lose weight quickly by minimising their calorie intake two days a week while eating healthily on the other five.

He subsequently introduced a rapid weight loss programme and has made a number of films about diet and exercise.

Mosley has often pushed his body to extreme lengths to see the effects of his diets and also lived with tapeworms in his guts for six weeks for the BBC documentary “Infested! Living With Parasites.”

Mosley has four children with his wife Clare Bailey Mosley, who is also a doctor, author and health columnist.