Mindy Kaling has never been one to embrace comments about her body. The 46-year-old actress understands the fascination with a celebrity's physical transformation, which is why she empathizes with the curiosity surrounding her weight loss over the years. "It's not always fun when one of your favorite actors loses weight," Mindy told Bustle in an interview published on May 19th. "You have an image of them in your head, and it's what made them endearing to you." She added, "Of course, it's never a joy to be scrutinized, but as someone who consumes pop culture, I truly understand it."
Despite having said that she no longer pursues weight loss for "vanity reasons," Mindy's children—Katherine "Kit," 8, Spencer Tracy, 5, and Anne, 2—are major motivators in her health journey. She shared, "I have to live at least 20 more years for my kids. Now I want to lose weight or have lost weight because I want to avoid things like diabetes. It runs in my family, and trying to avoid these kinds of illnesses will help me live longer, which is my goal."
The Office alum also shared that slimming down hasn't necessarily changed her self-image. "Do I wake up every day feeling like, 'I look amazing and I'm so gorgeous'? No, unsurprisingly, but I truly feel so healthy," she said.
Regardless of her size, Mindy has always embraced her look and fielded comments about her body. In 2014, she told Vogue, "When I'm at my thinnest, I tend to wear things that don't show off my body. But when I'm bigger, I'll go for body-con." She continued, "I'm constantly in a state of self-improvement, but I don't beat myself up over it."
Throughout her weight loss journey over the past few years—crediting her results to her fitness routine, hydration habits, and food moderation—Mindy has also had some words of wisdom for her younger self: "Don't worry about the scale."
