MEGA WOMAN
Iza Calzado Wintle uses her superstardom as a platform to empower women with She Talks Asia
Iza Calzado Wintle encourages women to love themselves, flaws and all
Personalities under the limelight have always been required to look their best. Every photograph taken of them is expected to have a certain glossiness worthy to be on the pages of a magazine or an Instagram post labeled #goals. Unfortunately, these insta-perfect models wearing the latest in fashion, with their amazing physiques and poreless, glass skin often serve to increase a woman’s insecurities instead of inspiring them. Iza Calzado is one such beauty who aims to break the mold by being comfortable in her own skin and sharing the message of body positivity.
In one of Iza’s The Body Love Revolution talks for She Talks Asia, she spoke about her journey to self-love. Her weight peaked when she was fifteen at 220+lbs and at that time it was one of her major insecurities. In trying to reach unrealistic beauty standards she fell into what she describes as “death-defying body tricks” such as anorexia, bulimia and flat-out starvation. “I must’ve really hated my body to go through all that suffering. Why? What prompted this self-hatred?” she asks, looking to answer it by looking back to her childhood. She first mentions her beautiful mother who was going through life suffering from Bipolar Disorder. On good days she would call Calzado Wintle beautiful and on other days she would call her ugly. Her mother also loved beauty pageants and she would condition Iza to be a beauty queen in the future. Then there was her love for TV and movies where she would always see the leading woman as perfect creatures. These became her standards of beauty and made her feel broken. Even when she had lost over 100 lbs, her self-worth was still in an all-time low. In her journey she mentions that perfection is a never-ending journey. She realized that when she was working so hard on her body she forgot to transform her mind to embrace and love every part of herself. It was in this realization that her journey to self-love began.
She Talks Asia started in 2017 by three women. She approached one of them aiming to do body
positivity talks in schools to help younger women to develop their self-worth. “If I’m going through this, then other people might be going through the same thing.” She said. For Calzado Wintle, self-love is being healthy in mind, body and spirit. Her journey to loving herself and having this platform to talk to more women brought up more issues that women go through and Iza began to understand that most of it rooted in the lack of selflove. The She Talks Asia community has grown exponentially throughout the years and has currently launched Tribe Meet Ups as well as their first grassroots program. Currently, they are preparing for their March summit called Stand Up, Feel Seen and more projects that will help the woman of today navigate the world better, smarter and healthier. “It is vital for us to provide women with access to information and to provide them with a safe space where they know they can share their concerns and ideas and also learn from our speakers and from themselves,” she said.
Calzado Wintle has always described herself as an unconventional woman. This meant rejecting the world view of a singular kind of beauty and instead accepting that women, in their different shapes and forms, are perfect in their own ways. It is this mindset and her continuous effort of instilling this message to women all over the world that makes Iza on a league of her own.