Role “Model”: Famous Women Who Inspire Us [Part III] at Her Active Life

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Role “Model”: Famous Women Who Inspire Us [Part III]

Posted February 22, 2008 at 06:00 PM by Caroline Shannon

Section: Her Health, Her Motivation, Her Story, Special Features

Christy Turlington We all need role models - strong, self-sufficient women who endure tough times and make a meaningful mark on the world around them. While many women look to the world of celebrities for their idols, the ladies who deserve the title of “role model” are few and far between. Check out our other “Role ‘Models’” here and here, and read on for the third edition.

While yoga, balance and holistic nutrition seem to do anything but mesh with the designer duds of Prada or Gucci, supermodel Christy Turlington has proven that downward dog actually can work quite well with the likes of a catwalk.

And although Turlington may be best known for her more than 10 years spent as a permanent fixture in the fashion industry, her accomplishments only continued to build after she took a different approach to the spotlight.

In 1994, the 5’ 10” beauty left life as an icon and took some time to study literature and religion at New York University. In 1999, she graduated cum lade with a degree in philosophy.

But it was during her time at school that the model really began to kick her approach to wellness into high-gear. In 1996, after she faced a scare with an early diagnosis of emphysema, Turlington and her father had made a decision to quit smoking together. While it had been too late for her father – he died of lung cancer six months after he had stopped smoking – she knew that in order to honor him and her own recovery she had to do something to help others.

At age 26, Turlington began to devote herself to several local and national anti-smoking campaigns. And even though she gained ten pounds as a result if her decision to give up the habit, Turlington said she knew she was better off.

“When I finally did quit for good, I knew it was one of the biggest accomplishments of my life,” Turlington said in a television commercial for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The now 39-year-old, also launched the Web site, Smoking Is Ugly, a resource for anyone who would like to quit smoking, learn about lung cancer, or further explore the research that goes hand-in-hand with smoking and disease.
Christy Turlington
When she was 18, Turlington began to study yoga, and while she appreciated the exercise form, her hectic schedule for the next several years left her unable to fully commit to the discipline. But during her late 20s – throughout school and her father’s death –Turlington found herself revisiting yoga once she became less involved in beauty culture. According to an April 2001 Time magazine article, Turlington, who is the author of Living Yoga: Creating a Life Practice, performs the mind-body exercise at home three times a week and in a class setting about two times a week. “I was interested in cleaning my body on a deeper level,” Turlington said in the Time article. “Yoga really purifies your organs and blood. You feel that. You feel that circulation of energy. But the real lesson yoga gives you is learning how to be present.”

The mother of two also practices meditation and follows Ayurveda, an ancient holistic science from India. Ayurvedic principles are based on an individual finding balance, a matter that is achieved by discovering one’s dosha. According to the Ayurvedic Institute, everyone’s unique combination of the doshas – vata, pitta and kapha – can help “restore the balance and harmony of the individual, resulting in self-healing, good health and longevity.”

And just when one would think it seemed as if Turlington could not make room in her schedule for one more endeavor, the model took her knowledge of Ayurveda and co-produced with two other women the skincare line, Sundãri, meaning “beautiful woman.”

What’s more, in addition to yoga and total health, supermodel Turlington has also devoted her time to several charities and causes, including Art Inspiring Hope, a fund raiser that supports children with cancer, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

And one cause the yogi-activist-nonsmoking-entrepreneur is forever devoted to is the empowerment of women, and people, everywhere through the mind-body experience:

“Eastern philosophy says that human beings have forgotten what they came here for and that we have lost ourselves as a result,” Turlington said in a December 2002 Shape magazine article. “I truly believe that we have the answers within us, but it takes incredible discipline and hard work to find them.”

In addition to writing for several publications, including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Divorce360.com, long-time journalist Caroline Shannon is a lover of all things related to health and nutrition. She has been a runner for more than ten years and is a certified Pilates instructor. Check out more from Caroline on her her blog, Eat, Pray, Run.