Melinda Gates opens up about past 'toxic' relationship that caused her body image issues

On The Jamie Kern Lima Show, Melinda French Gates spoke about how she battled body image issues during her past relationship. She termed it toxic and said it made her feel insecure and conscious of her own body.

The 60-year-old highlighted how it began early on when she was in high school, and it only went downhill from there when she met a boy at Duke University. It was his frequent remarks on her body and her appearance that made her spiral and go down the lane filled with negativity.

She spoke of how her confidence and everything else took a hit, and her 20s and 30s were quite tough for her to take on. She said, "It was really not a positive relationship for me at all. He cared a lot about how I looked and said a lot of things about it to me, and that really is not okay. It really is not."

Gates said it was only in her 40s that she began to regain her confidence. Expressing what it was like, she said, “I would say that carried through with me into my 20s and even into my 30s. And it wasn't, probably, until I got to 40 that I got more okay with who I was."

Over the years, she worked on her image of self, and now she focuses on being healthy and fit, and her physical appearance is looked at with a holistic approach rather than a myopic view. She said, “I want to be fit because I want to be able to do all the things I want. I have so much more mind space."