Katherine Schwarzenegger might have famous parents (mom is journalist Maria Shriver and dad is former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger) but make no mistake, she’s making quite a name for herself all on her own. The 20-year-old UCLA student has decided to go public with an issue that affects many women and girls—negative body image. It was during an internship with the Dove Real Beauty Campaign that Katherine says she learned just how many women were struggling from low self-esteem and she felt compelled to help. Now, through her continued work with Dove (she’s a Dove Movement for Self-Esteem Youth Ambassador) and her new book, Rock What You've Got: Secrets to Loving Your Inner and Outer Beauty, Katherine’s making a difference in the way young girls view their bodies. Read on to see what Katherine had to say about her own struggle with body image, her book and why she thinks building self-esteem is so important.

Tell us a little about what compelled you to share your story and write the book. I saw a lot of my younger cousins and girlfriends kind of going through all the pressures from the media to look a certain way and struggling with the fact that they couldn’t really be themselves. So I wanted to share my experiences dealing with body image and coming to a feeling of accepting my body for what it is and not trying to make it into something that it’s not.

You mention body issues being prevalent in our society. Why do you think that is? I think a lot of young girls try to look like what they see on the cover of a magazine, which is not really who they are. The media has a huge responsibility in letting young girls know what they should and shouldn’t look like. Dove does a lot of workshops about self-esteem, which is great because I really don’t think there is enough of that in America today.

You talk about mother-daughter relationships in your book. What do you think is the best piece of advice your own mother has given you when it comes to your self-image? Mothers have a huge responsibility with how they treat their bodies or talk about themselves in front of their daughters so I think that building up a great relationship between mother and daughter is really important. My mom and dad actually both always told me that I should be myself and stay true to who I am. It might sound corny but I think that’s honestly the best piece of advice that you can give your child.  

Besides your relationship with your parents, how did you overcome your own body issues and work on rebuilding your self-esteem? A positive body image doesn’t happen overnight—it’s something women deal with their entire lives. You really have to wake up every single morning and make the decision to either think positive or negative thoughts about your body and how you treat your body. I think that just reflecting on my past experiences is the way I did it. I really try to share a lot of my experiences with young girls in the book so they can go off of that and maybe not have to go through everything that I did.

Are there certain things that you recommend when someone’s having a bad day or feeling down about herself? When I don’t feel amazing about my body, I always do what my dad taught me to do and look at my glass as half full instead of half empty. I think as women we walk in front of the mirror and we tend to pick out all of the negative things about our body and only focus on those. But my dad taught me to focus on all of the positive things. I think that building yourself up and opening up your eyes to the things that you’re great at instead of focusing on the negative things is a really great way to start with that.