14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since she broke on the scene with her angelic looks and amazing voice, Jewel has received nothing but praises both for her professional accomplishments and for her image. It wasn’t always like that, though, she says for Shape magazine, on whose cover she’s pictured flexing her ripped abs in a stunning, two-piece swimsuit.
Back when she was just starting off, Jewel was rather on the plump side, which often put her under fire from her so-called friends. At one point, her figure was so harshly criticized that she now believes she was literally on the verge of an eating disorder. Also then, she realized that doing anything harmful to her body was not the way to tackle the body-image problems she had – and she chose to be mature about it and just focus on her health.
“My feelings were so hurt by that story, I ended up bingeing on an entire cake,” Jewel says of being named the “chubby Renee Zellweger.” “Afterward, I actually tried to throw it all up, but thankfully I couldn’t do it. It made me think, ‘I can’t go down this road.’ I had seen so many performers develop eating disorders or try to control their weight with drugs, and I decided I would do no harm to my body,” the singer adds of how she came to the conclusion she needed to work on her body image more.
Speaking of body image, the famous singer also says women would only be so lucky if they could be like men when it comes to how they see themselves in the mirror. “We should be more like men, God bless ‘em. They can take their shirts off and show their man boobs, and they don’t give a hoot. But women are so critical of themselves. We can be gorgeous and hot and still be embarrassed to wear a tank top. So if you can’t stop looking in the mirror, at least try to not think badly about yourself when you do,” Jewel explains.
Jennifer Love Hewitt is trying to send the same message to women out there in the latest issue of People magazine, as we also informed you yesterday. As the actress puts it, every woman out there should cherish and love the body she has – because, ten years later on, she will certainly not look as good as she does now.