- Demi Moore reveals she cycled 60 miles every day to lose weight after her second pregnancy
- The actress admits that she used to put too much pressure on herself, but has since learned how to manage her body image
- The themes of body image and “self-judgment” are highlighted in her new film Substance
Demi Moore reflects on her past negative body image and shares some of the unhealthy habits she relied on to lose weight.
The 61-year-old actress appeared in the Sept. 22 segment CBS Sunday Morning and talked about the “crazy” things she did to her body to conform to the beauty standards of the time.
“I put myself under so much pressure,” she told host Tracy Smith. “And I really had experiences of being told to lose weight and all that, although they may have been embarrassing and humiliating, that’s what I did to myself because of it.”
Moore revealed that she started shooting Rude offer shortly after her daughter Scout Willis was born in 1991. To lose her pregnancy weight, she would ride her bike to and from work every day – about 60 miles.
“I mean [Scout] he was about five or six months old when we filmed,” she explained. “I was feeding her all night, getting up in the dark in a trainer with headlamps, cycling all the way to Paramount, even on location where we were shooting, then shooting all day which is usually a 12-hour day and all over again.”
Demi Moore opened up about her recovery: ‘I was coming back through true self-destruction’
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“Even the idea of what I did to my body is so crazy, so ridiculous,” she continued. “But you look back and think, ‘Is it really that important?’ Probably not, but at the time I thought it meant everything.”
Moore added that today her self-image “fluctuates” but that she is in much better shape mentally.
“Some days I look at it and think, ‘Wow, that’s really good,’ and some days I find myself dissecting, hyper-focusing on things I don’t like,” she said. “The difference now is that I can catch myself. I can say, ‘Yeah, I don’t like that loose skin, but you know, it is what it is. So I’m going to make the best of what is, instead of chasing what isn’t.’”
Earlier this month during an interview with The GuardianMoore has been candid about body image and the “self-judgment” she explores in her new film Substance.
Speaking about the expectations of women’s bodies in the 90s, the actress said that women were not considered attractive unless they were thin at the time. “What I did to myself,” she told the newspaper. “What I did means something to me. Really looking at that violence, how violent we can be to ourselves, how just brutal.”
Demi Moore describes how the new film Substance Explores ‘chasing perfection’ in body image: ‘We’ve all had moments’
Tracey Biel/Variety via Getty
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“Self-judgment, chasing perfection, trying to get rid of ‘flaws,’ also feeling rejected and despairing, none of this is exclusive to women,” Moore continued, before referencing a scene in the film where her character, Elisabeth Sparkle, looks for her flaws in the mirror before the date.
“We’ve all had moments where you go back and try to fix something and you just make it worse to the point where you become incapacitated,” she explained. “We see these little things that no one else sees, but we’re so hyper-focused on everything that we’re not. All of us, if we start thinking that our worth is only in how we look, then we’re going to be broken in the end.”
Moore then clarified that “we live in a time of great judgment,” where “people can anonymously judge each other in cruel ways.”
“I feel it [this kind of judgment] is a reflection of one’s own unhappiness and/or a way for them to reinforce their own sense of self,” she said at the time. “When those things happen, I’ve learned to let it play out. That’s what I think it means to me. If I give it great weight, value and power, it will have it. If I won’t, I won’t.”
Substance follows Moore’s character Elisabeth as she tries black market drugs to create a younger version of herself. Directed by Coralie Fargeat, the film – which also stars Margaret Qualley – explores themes including body image and societal expectations for women and ageing. It won the award for best screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education