Swimsuit

2023 SI Swimsuit Rookie Melissa Wood-Tepperberg Speaks Out on Women's Strength

The wellness leader and mom of two shares that she did not always feel as confident in her body as she does today.

Ananya Panchal

Melissa Wood-Tepperberg on What It Means to Be a Woman

Melissa Wood-Tepperberg is getting honest about what it means to be a woman. The MWH founder recalled how her relationship with her body has changed over the years—and admitted that it hasn’t always been perfect.

“I did not love my body for so many years of my life,” the 40-year-old says. “I would look in the mirror and only see the things that I needed to fix, and it felt awful. It feels so heavy and you really just lead life in such an insecure way. And I’m so glad that I’m now at a place in my life that I’ve moved away from that way of being and thinking and living.”

Wood-Tepperberg makes her debut in the magazine this May. She shares two young children, Benjamin and Elanor, with her husband, Noah Tepperberg.

She worked as a model and actress for nearly a decade in her 20s before pivoting to the wellness and fitness space. The Syracuse native created the MWH platform in late 2019 to make mindful health and wellness accessible and attainable for all.

“It means so much to be a woman. It is so empowering. There’s so much power that comes in being a woman,” the Move with Heart podcast host adds. “Look at what we do. We bring babies into this [world]. We carry babies in our belly. It’s wild. I just want women to know the power that we hold within ourselves and that we have when we really connect to this place, this source, this higher power within. We are unstoppable.”

The certified yoga and Pilates instructor has built her rapidly growing brand as a fitness and workout channel, but also as a safe space where she encourages followers to live healthy lifestyles and be the best version of themselves.

“I am the most confident now that I’ve ever been in my entire life,” Wood-Tepperberg says. “So it just shows, embrace age. You just become more of who you are.”

She hopes her feature in SI Swimsuit teaches young girls that life truly gets better with age and that getting older shouldn’t be feared.

“You become more comfortable in your own skin, and it’s also really taught me that age is really just a number and not to grasp or grip it too tightly,” Wood-Tepperberg adds. “Turning 40 and being able to live out one of my greatest desires [being featured in SI Swimsuit], I want anyone out there to know that you can do anything—you really can—that you set your mind and your energy and your focus and your intention toward. You can make it become a living, breathing reality.”

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Ananya Panchal
ANANYA PANCHAL

Ananya Panchal is a writer on the Lifestyle and Trending News team for SI Swimsuit. Before joining SI Swimsuit in 2022, she worked at Bustle, the San Francisco Chronicle and the TODAY Show. When she is not writing or doom-scrolling on social media, Panchal can be found playing sudoku, rewatching One Tree Hill or trying new restaurants. She's also a coffee and chocolate (separately) enthusiast. Panchal has a bachelor’s in communications and journalism from Boston University.