This week, the news media has been abuzz with coverage and analysis of Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office.  While that’s traditional, we would like to start a new tradition of feting the First Lady after her first 100 days as the nation’s most visible wife and mother.  And who better to start with than Michelle Obama?  There’s probably never been a woman in a better position to transform the American image of beauty—on the inside and the outside—than the First Lady.

Let’s break it down according to the four stages of the Beauty-Brain Loop, which we introduced in our book, The Beauty Prescription: Inner Beauty, Health, Outer Beauty and Environment…

Inner Beauty: There has never been a first lady in our lifetimes who has been such a powerful person in her own right.  Maybe Eleanor Roosevelt was as strong an influence on culture, but she didn’t have Michelle’s style and grace to go along with the strength and resolve.  Ms. Obama exudes confidence and a sense of purpose, but it goes beyond that.  Perhaps it’s because of her generation: she’s the first First Lady to come of age in the feminist era when it was no longer acceptable for women to smile in the background while their husbands dominated the podium.  Were she not Mrs. Barack Obama, Michelle would still be arresting and no doubt leave a big mark on the world.

But as the wife of the president, she has done more to show her Inner Beauty.  She has somehow managed to strike the perfect balance between the brilliant lawyer, the career woman driven to bring positive change to the country, and the wife and mother trying to help her family get through the impossible transition into the White House as easily as possible.  As her husband was entering the Oval Office, her focus shifted to her daughters: getting them set up in school, getting them a dog, making sure they had time with their father every day at the breakfast table and doing homework.  She was a mother and wife first, a First Lady second.  Perhaps that’s why, according to America Online, her approval ratings are higher than the president’s.  She knows what matters most to her and gives her joy: her family.  That’s where her attention goes. She has already declared that much of her attention will go to helping American families—especially military families.  Part of her Inner Beauty is knowing who she is, what she is and what in important to her and apologizing for none of it.

Health: One of the first projects Michelle took on was to plant a “kitchen garden” on the White House lawn with the aid of some DC schoolchildren.  She said that its purpose, other than to give her family fresh vegetables to eat, was to promote healthy eating and home gardening.  Can you imagine Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton down in the dirt planting carrots?  Neither can we.  The insistence on being her own person, despite what protocol or tradition might dictate, is as much a part of Michelle’s Inner Beauty as her dedication to Health.  And after all, her husband is pretty much shattering tradition as the first African-American president.

The First Lady, because she tends to focus on “soft” issues such as school and healthcare, can have a huge impact on these vital areas of our country.  It’s great to see Ms. Obama already working on spreading the gospel of health and living a healthy, balanced lifestyle in what can be the world’s most stressful environment.

Outer Beauty: This is the most obvious difference in Michelle versus past First Ladies.  She’s not dainty.  She’s bold and beautiful.  She’s got curves and she’s not afraid to show them.  She’s also got biceps and she’s not afraid to display them, either. And of course, she’s African-American.  She is already setting a new beauty standard for black women in this country, a standard that implicity says you can be feminine and stylish but still strong, forceful and proud of your heritage.

Certainly, Michelle has set the fashion world on its ear with her bold style, starting with the still-talked about dress she wore on election night.  She’s no wallflower, no Jackie O with pillbox hats.  The first Michelle Obama fashion book is about to hit bookstores, and she’s all over the covers of major magazines from Vogue and Ebony to Essence and People.  But it’s not just her striking looks or sense of bold style that makes her so magnetic, we think.  It’s also that she’s so grounded, so clearly happy.  Half of her magazine covers are shots with her family, and she clearly loves being a wife and mother.  That makes her gorgeous.  There are plenty of women in the world who are more physically stunning than Michelle Obama; there are few if any in the public eye who seem so radiantly happy, balanced and confident in their looks and their lives.

That said, she’s also making it more than OK to be a statuesque, curvaceous, toned, strong-boned lady.  She’s taking back some of the territory claimed in recent years by the underfed, size zero waif, and that’s just fine by us.

Environment: What could say more about Michelle’s effect on the Environment than the fact that she still has date nights with her husband, even if they are in Prague?  The world’s most powerful man and his wife still find time to snuggle over a romantic bottle of wine?  OK, it’s a little less romantic when you add all the Secret Service agents, but that’s not the point.  The point is, it sends a message: if the president and First Lady can find time in their schedules for some alone time, can’t the rest of us turn off the TV, quit Twittering and sit down over candlelight with the ones we love?

Michelle Obama seems determined to use her place as an icon for women and African-Americans to make the world a better place.  Whether that comes as a result of her total devotion to her family, her dedication to healthful living, her style, her work with families or some other project, she is sending a powerful message to the world through her example: no one can define you but you.  It’s an incredibly positive message for self-esteem.  During the campaign and after, political pundits have tried to define her as an angry black woman, an America hater, someone who defied protocol and so on.  Michelle hasn’t cared, and she hasn’t apologized.  She has nothing to apologize for, because no woman should ever apologize for takign on the role and following the path that fills her life with love, purpose and joy.

You go, Michelle.  We give you an A+ for your first 100 days as one of the defining new icons of beauty.  We can’t wait to see what the next three-and-three-quarters (and maybe more) years will bring.

Stay beautiful,

Debi & Eva

She’s the toast of the country and the object of admiration of millions of women, African-American and otherwise.  She’s the new First Lady, Michelle Obama.  Already, the nation is dissecting and obsessing over her appearance and fashion sense; her hair stylist, Johnny Wright, already has a development deal for his own reality show.  Clearly, we’re on the cusp of a new era not only in style but in the concept of female beauty in this country.

We say that because for the first time, we have a black first lady, a fact which puts African-American features, hair and style front and center.  For most of the past century, for mainstream America, female beauty has equated to a certain set of characteristics: Caucasian, tall, model-thin, large-busted, and charming.  Intellect wasn’t really a requirement, and certainly African-American women—even stunning ones like Beyonce or Halle Berry—were sort of on the periphery.  But now we have a woman at the crux of American social and political life who’s not only black, but curvaceous, strong-boned, educated, brilliant (she’s a Harvard Law grad and an author in her own right) and clearly just as strong as her husband.  It appears that we’ve finally left the “delicate flower” image created by Jackie Kennedy in the past.

This was a process started by Hillary Clinton, who also refused to smile in the background when her husband was president, and caught heat for it.  But she began the process of making the powerful, accomplished, highly intelligent woman into an icon of style, confidence and beauty.  Michelle Obama is taking the baton that the new Secretary of State handed her, and she seems to be gaining speed.  What does this mean for the American perception of beauty?  For one thing, it means that for millions of African-American women, their form of physical loveliness will be more regularly in view.  This may mean that the unique qualities of African-American hair (though Michelle currently wears her hair straightened, and it remains to be seen if she’ll allow it to become more “ethnic” as time goes on), complexion and body will hopefully become more a part of our lexicon of what is beautiful.

It also may mean that African cultural style, including traditonal clothing, may become something more than a curiosity but more part of mainstream fashion.  The Obamas are already talking about adding art to the White House that reflects the African-American experience; can it be too long before the First Lady shows up to a state dinner wearing a kitenge (a Kenyan traditional sarong-like dress)?  We think this is all incredibly healthy for our national Inner Beauty for several reasons:

• At the simplest level, a generation of African-American women and girls are going to see themselves reflected in the nation’s most visible woman and enjoy having their own physicality and style widely regarded as beautiful, a boost for self-esteem.
• As more Americans open their minds to the new ideas of beauty embodied in Michelle Obama’s charisma, strength and intelligence, we begin to see beauty in new areas and new people.  And as we have said before, seeing beauty throughout life is a hallmark of Inner Beauty.
• The greater tolerance of difference that we hope will come from having a black President and First Lady should make us all more loving and understanding of the differences between us.

Many pundits have already remarked on the ways in which the Obama presidency represents a watershed moment for the nation.  Allow us to call Michelle Obama what we believe she is: the symbol and embodiment of a new era of more inclusive beauty for everyone.

Stay beautiful,

Debi & Eva