‘PERFECTION ISN'T NORMAL'

Actress and mum-of-six Madeleine West spills on why she’s determined to change the focus on body image

- AMBER BRAMBLE

The pressures around body image are something that most of us are all too familiar with. Unfortunately, this often starts early, with around 33 percent of Australians aged between 15 and 19 reporting they have serious concerns about their body.

It’s a subject Madeleine West is passionate about, both as someone who has faced plenty of scrutiny herself as an actress in the public eye, and also as a mum-of-six.

“I really do think that teens have [an] exponential amount of pressure on them in this day and age,” she tells WHO. “They feel that they have to change themselves.”

HONEST CONVERSATION

Body image is just one of the many issues that West examines in her podcast Mean-agers, which she co-hosts with psychologist Angela Murray. Tackling everything from exam stress to anxiety and how to talk to teenagers about sex, it aims to provide support to parents as they navigate through those turbulent adolescent years.

“For me, of course, I’m a mum-of-six, and I have a couple of teenagers in there,” says West, whose children Phoenix, Hendrix, Xascha, Xanthe, Xahlia and Margaux are between the ages of 16 and 7. “It’s so hard, being a teen. I don’t think I ever quite appreciated it until I became a mother myself.”