Apart from her physical good looks, Dawn Zulueta-Lagdameo, wife, mother, actress, philanthropist, and a champion of women’s and children’s rights, continues to prove that true beauty is indeed skin deep
Text by Sheila R. Jambalos Photos by Sarah Black
HER past and present endorsements say it all: a slimming center, a vitamin for beautiful skin, a shampoo for younger looking hair, a baby lotion, and a department store. Her face and body grace giant billboards along EDSA and all over the metro, effectively establishing her reputation as a woman of beauty and grace.
With her numerous commercial ads, Dawn is turning out to be one of the country’s “brands” of beauty. “I find it quite a nice honor and privilege to be zeroed in as one,” she says.
Staying beautiful and young
Staying beautiful and getting her gorgeous body back even after giving birth to son Jacobo, is one thing that according to Dawn is a conscious effort on her part. “It really doesn’t come easy that’s for sure.”
For this, she makes it a point to make time for all the things that she has to do to keep looking beautiful and young. This means going to facial care every week for her treatments and to the slimming center that she endorses to keep her body in perfect shape.
At 39, Dawn would easily pass as someone who is probably just in her twenties. “If I can try to still defy age and if it’s possible to maintain my youthful glow as long as I can, why not.” True enough, Dawn still looks young after all these years.
But apart from the physical, Dawn’s secret to staying young and being eternally beautiful remains her positive self-image. “I think, first of all, it’s in accepting what you have and working with what you have and trying not too much to make alterations. I think its part of loving yourself.”
She advises: “Try not to compare your body type with that of others, because you can’t change that.’’ Trying to aspire for something you can’t be would make you very unhappy. On the other hand, she says that confidence could go a long way in making one feel good about one’s self. “I really think it’s more of accepting what you are.”
Advocacies on women
Probably a big part of why Dawn is an epitome of beauty is because it emanates from having a beautiful heart and soul.
Aside from being an advocate of beauty and wellness, Dawn is involved in several advocacies that touch on her goodness of heart and compassionate spirit. Her advocacies, among other things, focus on working for the rights and service of women and the youth.
Dawn tells of her involvement with the “I Can Serve’’ foundation, a group that focuses its efforts on information dissemination on breast cancer. Working with the foundation way back early this year, Dawn has gotten to know what it stands for. When she was asked to help, she accepted and became one of the group’s advocates for breast cancer awareness.
“I realized that maybe like AIDS, cancer is a disease that would grip our lives in many centuries now,” says Dawn. And without a cure for cancer, she stresses on the importance of getting information out to women, especially those in areas where information do not reach them.
Dawn further admits that she almost fell victim to breast cancer, but was lucky that the tumor found on her was benign. This is why she stresses the importance of early detection among women. “I’m more concerned actually about the grassroots and about women’s health in areas where information doesn’t reach them. Or if information does reach them, they don’t get the whole of it.”
Dawn believes likewise that early detection through regular check-up is necessary to stand a chance against cancer. “The only way to be able to survive it is if you have early detection.” She adds she feels sorry for women who do not even know how to detect early and prevent breast cancer from happening just because they do not have access to the right information. More so for those who found out that they have cancer yet they have no way to get themselves cured. “So I’m fighting to get this information to them before it even hits them so that they really have a chance. Everybody has a chance.”
As a mother, Dawn stresses on the importance for a mother to be able to take care of herself and remain healthy. “Because I am also a mother, I do believe that part of the structure of family and the values we set for our children rely most on the parents, most importantly the mother.”
Dawn’s advocacies on women do not stop on cancer awareness and prevention alone. She is also an advocate of violence against women and children, along with the other wives of congressmen and senators.
Apart from these, she is also involved with several other groups, most of which can be found in their district in Davao del Norte, including mentoring and helping out-of-school youth.
Healthy mom
Prior to her recent big comeback in show business, Dawn has been enjoying life in Davao del Norte as a wife to businessman and now Congressman Anton Lagdameo, and mother to their son Jacobo. With the election of her husband in Congress, the family has moved back to Manila.
In her previous interviews, Dawn has expressed that she remains first and foremost a wife and mother. This means that taking care of her husband and son is a priority, and doing chores in the house like preparing meals is second nature to her.
It is through this that Dawn likes to inject her healthy living practices and share it with her family. “We do try to eat healthy, I try as much as possible to include healthy food in our menu. They’re not really aware of it yet, but I do include a lot of organic stuff,” says Dawn, adding that her husband and son would probably not eat the food she prepares if they know what she puts in it. She says it is better that they don’t know and that they just eat whatever she prepares.
Including healthy stuff in the family menu is just one way that Dawn keeps herself and her family healthy and on the right path to wellness. “I’m very conscious of what I eat, what I take. It’s basically just that I live a very health-conscious life.”
Another part of living healthy is keeping her self free of stress. And how does Dawn de-stress after a busy day’s work? “Being home with my son and my husband is like the whole world is outside. I already start to rest when that happens.”
Career and family
The ever-doting mom to Jacobo seems to can’t get enough of being mom, as she reveals that she and her husband are planning to have a baby by 2009.
For her career, she seems to have no immediate plans at all. “I don’t plan my career anymore. If it looks like it’s busy we didn’t really intend it to be that way,” says Dawn, who initiated a very successful comeback in show business even after giving birth.
She still could not believe that her comeback would be of the magnitude that she created. “I didn’t expect it. I just wanted to come back because I was missing work.” But she adds that she didn’t expect that she would be doing as much shows as she was offered or get all the endorsements she has.
“I’m very fortunate really that I do still get projects and I just take it in stride,” says Dawn. This is because, according to her, “My priority is really just my family and supporting my husband also with his political agenda.”
This also means that she doesn’t accept every project that comes her way because she says she doesn’t have spare time to give anymore for more show business projects. “I’m very choosy. It’s just that I have the choice now of finding out what it is that I want to do.”
Fulfilled woman
Having had her share of showbiz glitz and glamour and likewise experiencing how it is like to simply be a wife and mother, Dawn is a perfect picture of a fulfilled woman who is confident to face anything that life throws at her and anyone who crosses her path.
True confidence in one’s self that emanates from a positive self-image is indeed the best kept secret to being beautiful, outside and within. More than just being beautiful on the outside, Dawn believes that true beauty starts from within and how one perceives one’s self.
“I think it’s really more on your lifestyle, more on your general outlook in life, and the way you see yourself. I think if you have a healthy self-image that really helps.”
Take it from Dawn and you, too, can glow beautifully from within, the true mark of a beautiful woman.
