Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Grey's Anatomyalum Katherine Heigl has been in the spotlight since she was a child model and teen actress Heigl says Hollywood pressure to be thin made her 'hate working out' The actress says she wants to give her teen daughters a different, more positive message about body image Katherine Heiglsays she used to exercise to please other people. "Since I was 16 years old, I've been told to lose weight," says theGrey's Anatomyalum, 46, who began modeling as a child and was acting by her teens. "I look at my 16-year-old self and I'm like...'That was your peak. What were they complaining about?' It's bizarre. Hollywood is bizarre." David Turner/WWD/Penske Media via Getty At the time, working out was all about losing weight, rather than feeling good, she says. "I've had physical trainers and nutritionists and all this crap since I was a teenager," says theFirefly LaneandSuitsstar, whose first major break was on the sci-fi seriesRoswellin her early 20s before playing Izzie Stevens onGrey'sstarting in 2005. "I hated working out. I've always associated it with hating my body and wanting my body to change and look different." FRANK OCKENFELS/ABC Now 46 with two teen daughters (Naleigh, 16, and Adalaide, 13, whom she shares, along with son, Joshua, 8, with husband Josh Kelley), Heigl says she's learned to accept her body and is finally able to work out for herself. "I probably saw something on TikTok about what feel good hormones are released when you work out, and I went, "Okay, I'm going to do it for that,'" she says. "It really improved my mental health. It sets my day up for feeling much more at ease." Barry Wetcher/Fox It's a lesson she's wants to pass on toher kids,she says: "I'm trying to explain that to my girls now, like, 'Don't make this about changing your body or fighting with your body. Make it about feeling emotionally good.'" Katherine Heigl/Instagram Heigl, wholives in Utahwith Kelley and their family, says it's part of a larger message she hopes to pass on to them: "It's been easy to let other people's opinions and ideas about who I am or how I should be influence my own feelings about myself. I've tried to be overly perfect my whole life and failed again and again because nobody is perfect," she says. "I've tried to find a way as I've gotten older, to forgive myself for my mistakes and not put that kind of unrealistic expectation on myself, because it really does something to your self-esteem." She wants her kids "to have strong, independent self-esteem not based on what other people think about them. And then of course, to forgive themselves when they fail, because they will." Read the original article onPeople
