The former First Lady said that her now college-aged daughters Malia and Sasha have started to criticize their bodies as they get older
“That’s like saying at 20, I’m really upset that I couldn’t wear my favorite overalls anymore from when I was 10,” Obama continued. “That’s as ridiculous as it is at 56 to think that I should look like I did when I was 36, or for anyone to judge me like that, or to judge a woman like that.”
Still, she admitted it wasn’t always easy to accept her own body, especially as a public figure who faced constant criticism over her looks.“People called me all kinds of things when I was campaigning for Barack, like it was a competition,” she said. “They called me un-American, and this stuff sticks with you. Men talked about the size of my butt. There are people who were telling me I was angry. That stuff hurts, and it makes you sort of wonder, what are people seeing? That stuff is there.
Obama said that it takes work to love and accept your body, and it’s something that she’s learned how to do over time. Now she appreciates that her body is “all mine, and it’s a healthy body that works, every day.” “I try hard not to judge it,” she said. “And it’s different. You have to get to know your body, because what this body is at 56 — I can’t do the things I did when I was 36. It’s not the same body. We are living things. We’re not machines. You know, we run out of gas. We need fuel. We need sunshine and light. We need to take care of ourselves and when you don’t, as you get older, just like any living thing it begins to fail on you.
It’s a particularly personal topic for Obama, who detailed her father’s death at 55 from multiple sclerosis in her bestselling memoir“As a child growing up with a father with a disability who could not walk, my father would’ve given anything to have either one of my legs,” she said. “For me to judge that, and not to just embrace that and be happy that I’m alive, moving, able to move. I have to tell myself, appreciate what God gave you and take care of that.
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