www.thehill.com | By Judy Kurtz – 02/12/15
Obama became the first person — as opposed to seared salmon or peach pie — to grace the cover of Cooking Light this week, when she posed for the magazine’s March issue. The recipe-filled mag is just one of the countless covers Obama has appeared on since first stepping in the spotlight before her husband made his 2008 White House bid.
Asked by ITK to take a look at some of FLOTUS’s past magazine covers, body language expert Susan Constantine says her overall take on the many poses of Obama is: “She’s showing her vulnerable side. She’s showing you her sensitive side and her feminine side.”
Constantine, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Reading Body Language, says Obama might also be attempting to shake any negative perception of her with her choice of bodily twists and turns. “She’s taking you to her more intimate, feminine side to her. … That’s what the message is: She’s not this angry — excuse my language — bitchy, she’s just in control and powerful. She’s showing you the complete opposite.”
Her poses, Constantine says, indicate Obama’s “showing you the soft, feminine side of who she is, how she may feel about herself, that other people don’t know.”
Constantine, who holds a master’s degree in leadership coaching psychology, says all of Obama’s photos display confidence “but at the same time [she is] withholding and appearing more demure, and girly, and feminine. That’s what she’s doing. They’re almost contrasting each other, but she’s wanting you to see the very girly, reserved, shy, bashful side to Michelle Obama.”