Former boxer and television personality Laila Ali, boxer Muhammad Ali’s daughter, spoke to the St. Thomas community about how eating healthy and working hard can impact the body Monday in the James B. Woulfe Alumni Hall.

Ali said most people don’t realize how much the kinds of food they eat can affect their health.

“Most of us are aware of obesity and heart disease and diabetes and cancer, unfortunately,” Ali said. “A lot of people aren’t even aware that all those things come from the way we eat.”

In her younger years, Ali ran her own nail salon business, but said one night, while watching a women’s boxing match on TV with her friend, she decided to change career paths.

Ali said she was initially worried about what people thought of her training, so she decided to box in secrecy. She did not want to embarrass her father, her family name or herself.

When her dad found out about her boxing pursuits, Ali said her father was supportive of her career, but she knew he would rather see her on a different path.

“My father is very proud of me,” Ali said. “I could see in his eyes he was proud, even though at the end of the day, I know he would rather have me not fight.”

Ali, who has a 24-0 boxing record with 21 knockouts, told students what she thinks it takes to be get to the top.

“To be the best, I have to be at the best shape,” Ali said. “That means I have to run, I have to get my rest, eat the proper foods, take the right supplements and do all these things. That’s where all my inspiration came from.”

This message of eating healthy was well received from the audience, including sophomore Aislinn Leonard, who said Ali is a role model for her.

“She is very inspirational,” Leonard said. “She is really motivational because she is fitness. She is beauty. The health stuff sits in with me because I do like to eat clean all the time.”

Ali also talked about being defiant and being her own self. She didn’t want to be known as Muhammad Ali’s daughter, she wanted to be known as Laila Ali. This mindset hit close to home with one athlete in the crowd.

Sophomore Marcus Alipate is a guard for the St. Thomas basketball team, and his father, Tuineau, played in the NFL. Like Ali, Alipate said he tried create his own legacy apart from his father’s.

“I was very defiant, and I didn’t want to play football,” Alipate said. “I didn’t want anything to do with football because that was my dad. It was cool to hear her talk about her ambitions.”

Besides changing the food in her life, Ali also changed the people in her life and said she got rid of the bad influences. Ali said surrounding yourself with positive attitudes can impact you.

“People that you surround yourself with can’t collide with you and your goals,” Ali said.

Ali provided a roadmap to better health. She said to start by mapping out a plan, educating yourself, setting short and long term goals, setting a timeline and doing the work to help yourself reach goals.

Near the end of her speech, Ali talked about how she knows wealthy people, but when these people become sick, money doesn’t matter for them, just living. Her father is living with Parkinson’s disease. Ali said her all-time favorite athlete was her father.

Senior Robert Mom said he had a connection with Ali before this speech. Mom watched Ali’s fights with his father and said he learned that taking care of your body now will help it in the future.

“Your decisions that you make right now in the short term are going to affect what you will turn out to be in the long term,” Mom said. “Being healthy is very important and she basically confirmed my feelings about that.”

Sophomore Nyajal Dup also enjoyed the speech and was glad Ali emphasised eating healthy.

“It was like a motivator,” Dup said. “I think you kind of need that when you’re especially so busy … to just hear it from someone who knows what they’re talking about,” Dup said.

As the speech came to a close, an audience member asked Ali who her role model was growing up. Ali mentioned it was the ordinary people she was surrounded by. She talked about how her friends’ moms were her role models because they were able to manage the household and were able to keep everything in order.

Jesse Krull can be reached at krul7386@stthomas.edu.