Denise Richards may focus on staying (and looking) fit – but she’ll never complain about her weight in front of her daughters.

“I’ll never talk about weight around them,” the actress tells Shape magazine in its May issue. “And they’ll never hear me say, ‘Mommy’s feeling fat today.’ That kind of attitude just makes young girls grow up to be dissatisfied with their bodies.”

Instead, Richards says she tries to set an active example for her girls, Sam, 4, and Lola, 2.

“Working out is part of my life, not just an I-have-to-get-ready-for-a-photo-shoot thing,” she tells the magazine. “I exercise almost every day. The girls usually play in the workout room with me, so they’re learning by example.”

And while Richards has been criticized by some (including ex-husband Charlie Sheen) for including her daughters in her upcoming E! reality show, the actress says she works hard to stay positive.

It’s an attitude she attributes to her late mother, Joni, who died of cancer in November. Says Richards: “Even at the end, when things were really dire for my mother, she was never negative. There was an inner strength about her.”

That, in turn, is what she hopes to pass along to her daughters. “I want to teach my girls the importance of picking yourself up and moving forward.”

WENN

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