Michelle Obama Just Opened Up About Menopause and Aging
When Michelle Obama speaks, the world listens.
Whether she's asking people to go high when others go low, revealing she, too, has had some low-grade depression during the quarantine, or expressing her love for her husband and daughters—her impact is far-reaching.
So when the former first lady chooses to bring up less often discussed topics like menopause and aging on The Michelle Obama Podcast, it's a pretty big deal. In the episode she is joined by Sharon Malone, M.D., who Obama calls “a wonderful resource—a steadying force—in our group of women friends.” And she acknowledges that the topics at hand are not just for women. “You may want to put this on the speaker and blast it throughout the house so that your husband or your boyfriend, or your brother, they can hear it too,” she says. “I think this one might help open up some eyes, and help you open up a conversation that you’ve been meaning to have. It’s worth it for everybody to hear this kind of stuff.”
Amen to that!
Obama says she talks to her beloved mother, Marian, about many things in life—but when it came to menopause, her mom claimed she really didn't remember. Instead she says over the past 10 years she and her friends have had many conversations about it.
“There is so little information that people know to really access,” Jones says, “because, sometimes with menopause and the perimenopause, and I'll—just for definition's sake: Perimenopause is the years leading up to menopause anywhere—starts usually in your mid-40s, sometimes in your early 40s, but it goes, and menopause itself is your last period. You've had your last period, that's it…and then you are postmenopausal, for sure, when it's your last period plus a year. And why it's so confusing is because it happens to you before you're even thinking about it, that's the problem. And so you're 43, 44, and you start to be irritable, or you've got hot flashes, or your periods get screwy. The range of symptoms is huge.”
Obama even revealed some of her own symptoms and that she does take hormones.
“I, too, am a hormone taker, low risk, on all the other fronts, because I have a very healthy baseline, and also, you know, well, I was experiencing hormone shifts because of infertility, having to take shots and all that,” Obama shares. “I experienced the night sweats, even in my 30s, and, when you think of the other symptoms that come along, just hot flashes—I mean, I had a few before I started taking hormones. I remember having one on Marine One. I'm dressed, I need to get out, walk into an event, and literally, it was like somebody put a furnace in my core and turned it on high, and then everything started melting. And I thought, Well, this is crazy, I can't, I can't, I can't do this.”
Guess who took it all in stride? Her partner, Barack Obama.
“Barack was surrounded by women in his cabinet” she says, “many going through menopause and he could see it. He could see it in somebody ’cause sweat would start pouring, and he's like, Well, what's going on? you know, and it's like, no, this is just how we live. You know, he didn't fall apart because he found out there were several women in his staff that were going through menopause; it was just sort of like, 'Oh, well, turn the air conditioner on.”
As for the other things that come along with aging, Malone and Obama gave some real talk that we'd also love to shout from the rooftops.
“When I turned 60, I said to myself, You know, I'm going to give myself this gift, and the gift is I'm going to say yes to everything I want to say yes to and no to everything I don't,” Malone says. “And I don't think I have ever, in my life, given myself permission to do that.”
Obama replies, “And let's stop there so that the men that could be listening to this hear this, because they start doing that when they're 20. They adopt that philosophy much earlier in their lives. Men, it takes us until we're 50 or 60 to feel free enough, physically and emotionally, to say, I'm going to think about what I want, and say yes and no to the things that bring me joy or turn me off.”
Thank you, Michelle Obama, for speaking the truth for so many women. Honestly, we could have quoted this whole episode—but you can listen for yourself here.
Originally Appeared on Glamour
