Mindy Kaling told Bustle in a May 19, 2025 profile that online backlash over her weight loss is sometimes hard to take, but that her decision is rooted in health: she wants to "live at least 20 more years" for her children and to stave off diabetes that runs on both sides of her family.
In the interview Kaling acknowledged the emotional cost of public scrutiny while insisting she understands why audiences notice. "It’s sometimes no fun when one of your favorite actors loses weight," she said, adding, "You have an idea of what they were like when you grew attached to them, and it made them endear themselves to you." She balanced that with another observation: "Of course, it’s never a joy to be scrutinized, but also I truly understand it, as someone who consumes pop culture."
Her comments folded into a longer, health-forward explanation. Kaling said, "When I was younger, I would want to lose weight because of vanity reasons. Now I want to lose weight or have lost weight because I want to stave off things like diabetes." She said plainly, "I had it on both sides of my family, and trying to avoid those kinds of things will, I think, help longevity for me, and that's my goal." That goal — twenty more years — is the single number she returned to throughout the conversation.
She described how fitness fits into daily life: she takes two-mile walks after dropping her child off at school and calls a friend from high school while walking, and has structured workouts around hiking, running and weight training. In 2023 she described a regimen that included roughly 20 miles of hiking or running plus weight work each week. On the subject of exercise she said, "If there's one thing I've learned about working out," and finished the thought: "it's that I always feel happy and joyful after I do it." She has also said she "basically live[s] in workout clothes so [she] can get it in, get an extra mile in."
The interview folded into a longer pattern of public comments stretching back years. Kaling has recounted a painful moment from the mid-'00s when, in a writers room, someone suggested another character tell hers she could lose 15 pounds; she later told viewers in 2021 that being told to lose 15 pounds had been devastating and that it was her greatest insecurity. She told E! News in 2022 that she leaves workouts feeling happy, and told People in 2023 that she tries not to tune into body-shaming commentary, saying, "I know people are really interested in my body and the changes in my body, and I think it's flattering and sometimes it's just a little much, so I don't try to tune it in too much."
The friction in Kaling's account is plain: she is both the subject of close attention and a mother making choices she believes will lengthen her life. The Bustle piece also noted the tight circle around her family — Kaling said her friend B.J. Novak is a "huge part of her family’s life" and is the godfather to her children, underscoring that her decisions are being made in the context of parenting three young children, identified in past interviews as an 8-year-old Katherine, a 5-year-old Spencer and a 2-year-old Anne.
Ultimately, Kaling left little doubt about why she shifted emphasis. Asked about vanity versus health, she said, "Do I wake up every day being like, ‘I look amazing and I’m so gorgeous’? No, unsurprisingly, but I truly feel so healthy," and reiterated that the motive now is prevention and longevity. Her public explanation answers the clearest question her recent coverage raised: she frames the weight change not as a performance for fans but as a practical effort to reduce disease risk and be present for her children for decades to come.
