Mama’s got her back! Mama June Shannon told Us Weekly in an exclusive interview on Friday, March 10, that when it comes to body image, she always tells her daughter Alana Thompson, a.k.a. “Honey Boo Boo,” to “love herself no matter what.”
“I mean, I want her to love herself for her, and love her for her, and not give a s‑‑t what anybody else says,” the 37-year-old reality star told Us. “But also [I tell her], ‘I need you to know that you need to be worrying,’ because her dad, her grandmother on that side, does have diabetes and stuff.”
On the Friday, March 3, episode of Mama June: From Not to Hot, 11-year-old Alana doesn’t sound too thrilled about the idea of changing up her eating habits, even as she accompanies her mom to the doctor’s office after Shannon’s weight-loss surgery.
When Dr. Michael Feiz tells Alana she should change her diet alongside her mom, the Here Comes Honey Boo Boo alum stubbornly refuses. “Like, I have no idea what this man’s talking about,” she tells the camera. “Mama’s on this diet, but I’m not, boo boo. I like my curves.… I mean, seriously, this dude is really crazy.”
As Shannon explained to Us, she’s not too concerned about Alana’s health at the moment. “I’m not like, ‘Oh, my God. This is what’s going to happen.’ No,” she said. “Because who knows, I’ve seen people extra big at 10 or 11 and be skinny as hell whenever they get older.”
So far, Shannon has lost an extraordinary amount of weight with a combination of surgery, exercise and diet change, going from 460 pounds to a size 4. But, the reality family matriarch told Us, she doesn’t feel all that different than she did when she weighed significantly more.
“I was happy,” she told Us of her life pre–weight loss. “I mean, this sounds crazy, [but] I was happy with myself at 460, [and] I’m happy with myself now. People are able to see me now what I’ve always seen myself as. So for me it’s like I’ve always seen myself as being a skinny person or smaller, and now everybody is seeing me as what I’ve always seen myself as. Because I’m not … even though I’ve lost weight, I’m not Miss Skinny Minnie, I can promise you that.”
Mama June: From Not to Hot airs on We TV Fridays at 10 p.m. ET.
