Hoda Kotb Shares Heartbreaking Story About Struggling With Her Weight as a Child
Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager declared on the Today show last week that they were trying out intermittent fasting, a diet plan that involves limiting when you can eat.
The two NBC morning show co-hosts weighed themselves during the fourth hour of Today to kick off their plan.
This week, both Hoda and Jenna reflected on the experience and what they hope stepping on a scale will do for their viewers.
Last week, Today fourth-hour co-stars Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager weighed themselves on the show while announcing they were going to try intermittent fasting, a hotly debated weight-loss diet that asks you to restrict when and how much you eat during a specific amount of time.
Looking back on their weigh-in a week later, Hoda, who just announced her engagement on Monday, said on Today that she and Jenna had no reservations about it, at first.
"We were both like, 'So what? Let's do it,'" Hoda said on Today. "We didn't debate it for one second."
“It’s not about the way we look. It really was about the way we feel.” @jennabushhager and @hodakotb reflect on weighing themselves last week. pic.twitter.com/92fLGkg7Qz
— TODAY with Hoda & Jenna (@HodaAndJenna) November 25, 2019
Still, the experience did bring up memories of when Hoda was younger and, according to Today, "wrestled with her weight."
"I remembered wondering like, 'I wonder why guys aren’t asking me out,'" Hoda recalled. "Like, I knew I was bigger than the other kids. I was the bottom-of-the-pyramid girl. I was the get-in-the-back girl. But I do think when you have to go through things like that as a younger kid, what’s weird is your childhood may have been tough in places, but it makes your adulthood so much easier.”
Like Hoda, Jenna also opened up about what weighing herself felt like for her. She shared a story from her childhood when she was encouraged to jump on "the blob" float at summer camp because she was heavier and made the kids on the other end of it fly higher.
“I, for a second, was transported to when I was like a chubby little girl and found a scale in my mom [former First Lady Laura Bush]’s room and weighed myself. And, I, for a moment, was stuck there,” the former first daughter said.
But now, Hoda and Jenna, who both have two daughters of their own, hope that their platform will help other women feel "less alone." The two fourth-hour co-hosts also agreed that they're both "grateful" to be healthy.
“It taught us a little lesson,” Hoda explained. “I do think we’re doing this because we want to feel better. We want to feel better for our girls. We want to feel happier.”
“We want to teach our girls that they’re so much more than the way we look,” Jenna added.
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