Even the biggest icons sometimes don’t like what their mirror shows them.
Case in point: Shania Twain, who recently opened up about a dark period in her life, where she spoke about all the “unhealthy things” she did to become “thinner” and trim her waistline.
She admitted that the process of making her feel stage-ready led her to be “malnourished,” and she even suffered a serious injury at the time.
Shania Twain opened up about a dark period in her life during a recent interview
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In an industry obsessed with staying young and thin, Shania Twain spoke about the battles she has endured to feel like she is still in shape.
The 60-year-old queen of country pop spoke about her 2019 Las Vegas residency, during which time she wasn’t comfortable with the way her body looked.
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“I stopped looking at myself in the mirror. I hated my body,” she told The Times in a new interview published Sunday.
“I’m, like, ‘Oh, I cannot stand this changing body.’ But that was so unhealthy,” said The Man! I Feel Like A Woman! hitmaker.
“Who cannot look at themselves in the mirror?” she added.
The country music icon spoke about all the “unhealthy things” she did to become “thinner”
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The singer said she was following her regular routine as she was growing older; yet, her body underwent natural changes that she couldn’t control.
“So, all of a sudden, I’m bloating and I’m definitely not in control,” she said. “I can’t just lose five pounds.”
That’s when she began doing “very unhealthy things” to trim her waistline.
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“I was working my body more than I was feeding it to keep up with the strain,” she said during the interview.
Her obsessive drive “to be thinner” made her push her body so much that she wound up being “malnourished,” she said.
What made matters worse was going onstage one night during her Las Vegas residency and sustaining a thigh injury.
When adults do not enjoy the benefits of a balanced diet, they show signs of malnourishment and malnutrition, which stops the body from performing at its best.
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Depending on the type of undernutrition, adults may experience visible muscle wasting, weight loss, changes in skin such as paleness, dryness, or flakiness, hair thinning, brittle nails, falling sick often, and so on.
Malnutrition, caused by skipping meals, could lead to stress, slow metabolism, and blood sugar crashes in the short run, while in the long run, it could lead to increased risk of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
“In starvation mode, when your body finishes its preferred energy source (glucose), it will switch to burning fat (a state of ketosis),” said Amanda Spina, a registered dietitian at Banner Health. “As this fasting phase continues, it may also start breaking down protein in the form of muscle tissue, which can damage your kidneys.”
The Man! I Feel Like A Woman! Singer said she put her body through so much that she became “malnourished”
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For Twain, things took a positive turn when she entered menopause, making her completely change the way she looked at her body and herself.
“Now I’m like, bring on the mirrors, I’m going to look at myself all day long!” she told the outlet. “Menopause has been very good for me because I’ve learned that some things you cannot control.”
Menopause, a natural part of aging, marks the end of an individual’s productive years. It is defined as the point at which an individual has completed 12 consecutive months without experiencing their period.
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The average age of menopause in the US is 52 years old, but the transition to menopause, known as perimenopause, usually begins in one’s mid-40s.
Menopause symptoms include hot flashes, night sweats, cold flashes, mood swings, difficulty sleeping, vaginal dryness, irregular periods, and so on.
The Grammy winner said she has “always” been “insecure” about her body since she was young because of being touched inappropriately
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Twain previously revealed that she “was always insecure about [her] body” because she was “touched inappropriately so many times” throughout her youth.
“I was in ab*s*ve situations where you hate being a woman,” she told Us Weekly last year. “I hated being a girl. My mother goes, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I said, ‘A bodybuilder.’”
The singer said she wanted to be a “big, strong man” that nobody wanted to mess around with. “No one was going to touch my arm or my a** or anything unless I was OK with it,” she added.
When the effects of menopause took her life, she said there was a “big change” in her attitude towards her appearance.
“Do you think I care if I’ve got a roll? No, I’m not focusing on that. I’m happy when I look in the mirror, I’m not cringing when I look in the mirror,” she told Mirror in 2024.
“What’s unfortunate is that, when I was younger, I was doing that,” she added. “When I started to realise I had been missing out on whatever I am, I knew it was time to make a major change.”
The life of the You’re Still The One singer is reportedly going to be turned into a biopic
The five-time Grammy winner opened for Harry Styles earlier this month for his Together, Together tour stop at Wembley Stadium and is expected to rock the same London venue on certain dates till July 4.
Her life is also reportedly set to become the subject of a biopic, written by Leah McKendrick.
Some netizens related hard to Shania Twain’s struggles with body image
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