The first assignment in my body image seminar is for students to write their body image autobiography. One of the many questions they have to answer is “what well known individuals do you find beautiful and why?” This past fall, I was struck by the fact that more than half of my diverse class with students ranging from age 18 to 49 and from all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicities listed Ellen DeGeneres when answering that question. They all admired her comfort in her own skin, her generous spirit, her authentic style. Imagine my further delight when I was reading through the latest issue of US Weekly at the gym and came across this quote from Ellen (the small story on her was about her new gig as the face of CoverGirl and Olay), “I realized I don’t have anything to prove anymore and that beauty isn’t about somebody else’s definition. It’s really just about looking your best and feeling good.” I’ll dance to that.
Oh, wow!!!! That’s so very interesting and not a person I honestly would’ve thought of.