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Taking It to Heart
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Three somewhat surprising facts about supermodel and "Project Runway" host Heidi Klum
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By Kalia Doner
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MediZine's Healthy Living Summer 2009
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A supermodel who never diets, Heidi has little patience with the waifish look that some of her catwalk colleagues project. “I don’t want to be wondering about how skinny I am, wondering what I’m going to eat,” she says. Heidi knows that she doesn’t “look weird enough for the catwalk, and that’s fine. The other girls are always much taller and skinnier, but it just isn’t my thing. I stick to what I’m good at and have never been prepared to starve myself to death and do crazy stuff just to be like a thin rail and fit into [designers’] clothes.”
“I always wanted to be a mom,” says Heidi, mother to five-year-old Leni, four-year-old Henry and three-year-old Johan. And her idea of family life is more like yours and mine than a world-famous cover girl’s. “At Thanksgiving,” she says, “I have my parents, I have screaming kids, I have a big fat turkey sitting in the middle—legs are being ripped off that thing! There’s life in the house.”
With her husband, the singer Seal, she strives for family time. “We cook every day, and I like to try different recipes,” she says. “I love healthy food. It’s become my lifestyle, and now it’s my children’s lifestyle. I cook everything from meatballs and chicken soup with vegetables to kale salad and schnitzel.”
The Heart Truth, a program of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), aims to make women aware of heart-disease risks and how to reduce them. Heidi has devoted time to the cause by going on a national tour for The Heart Truth. She also appeared in a stunning red gown at this year’s Academy Awards, wearing a Red Dress charm that she designed with Diet Coke, one of The Heart Truth’s sponsors.
“Women often don’t make the connection between risk factors, such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and their own chance of developing heart disease,” Heidi says. “I want women to think about their own health and the things they can do to stay heart healthy.”
The campaign is aimed at women who are between the ages of 40 and 60. That’s when a woman’s risk of heart disease starts to rise. But its messages, says the NHLBI, are also important for younger women to hear, because heart disease can develop gradually. Whatever your age, “you have to stay active, eat healthy and know your family history,” says Heidi. “And always be your own health advocate.”
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