'Real Housewives' star Heather Gay says she struggles to raise her daughters with body positivity

A "Real Housewives" star is opening up about the difficulties she says she's faced trying to raise her daughters with body positivity, while also knowing firsthand how the world treats people at different weights.

Heather Gay, a cast member of "The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City," has faced headlines about her weight since the show's premiere season in 2020.

Gay, 49, told the ABC Audio podcast "Pop Culture Moms" that while she is now a public figure facing scrutiny about her weight, the struggle for her personally has been lifelong.

"There's never been a time in my life that my weight hasn't been an issue," Gay told "Pop Culture Moms" co-hosts Andie Mitchell and Sabrina Kohlberg. "And I guess there's a lot of sadness, because my weight's been up, my weight's been down, and I'm, of course, keenly aware of how the world treats me when my weight is down versus when my weight is up."

When she became a mom to her three daughters, now in their late teens and early 20s, Gay said she tried to "overcompensate" from her own childhood experience when it came to teaching them about weight and body acceptance.

While her own parents were more forthright in telling her that her weight mattered as a child, Gay, the author of the bestselling book "Bad Mormon," said she did the opposite with her daughters.

"I had been kind of trying to overcompensate with my own kids acting like we can eat whatever we want," Gay recalled. "We can get donuts in the morning. We can eat ice cream in bed at night, and the world will just accept us and love us, and we'll never have a weight problem. We don't have to follow the rules like the 'hot girl' secrets that everyone else is doing."

In retrospect, Gay said that approach was the "same type of disservice" to her daughters.

"Because the truth is, the world treats you differently," Gay said. "I'm really now trying to strike this balance where I want my daughters to feel absolutely empowered in their bodies. I don't want my daughters to feel limited by their body, like I did. But then you have to teach them that they do have the power to change it instead of, 'It's just all genetics,' or, 'You have to be a maniac.'"

Gay added that as a mom who battles with weight issues, she has faced additional obstacles.

"I really struggled finding that balance and doing it in a way where I could be honest about it, because I wasn't doing it myself," she said. "I think I tried to, like, have my kids eat worse than I did so that I could feel like I was setting an example."

Describing the role model role of motherhood as "hard," Gay added, "You want to set a good example, but you also are tired. I just want to watch shows and eat. I don't want to model good behavior right now."

Gay spoke about her struggles raising daughters in today's weight-conscious world, especially as her own weight made headlines again recently, after she shared publicly that she had lost more than 20 pounds using semaglutide, the active ingredient found in popular medications like Ozempic.

Gay said that whether it's weight or body acceptance or any other topic, she is OK talking about her struggles to help lessen the perfectionism that is often associated with motherhood.

"I think that as moms, we should kind of embrace when we screw up," she said. "It's like, we're teaching our kids that you can be an incredible person and mother, and still totally screw up. That makes it easier for me to parent authentically because I recognize that there's learning in the vulnerability."

The "Real Housewives" star said her willingness to be vulnerable has only increased since she's been on the show.

"Reality television really does connect us to each other in a really fascinating para-social way that I love," she said. "I think that as someone that's now been given this coveted spot to just explore my life on television, I just want to represent who I really am and what I deal with, and kind of just leave it all on the field."

CHECK OUT THE NEW PODCAST! They've been best friends for 20 years, and pop culture aficionados for even longer. Now, as moms of toddlers, Andie Mitchell and Sabrina Kohlberg are taking their obsession with TV and movies to the next level by talking to celebrities, writers and fellow "scholars" of pop culture about what they can learn from the fictional moms they love most. New from "Good Morning America" and ABC Audio, the first season of "Pop Culture Moms" posts weekly through May. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast app.