Health coach and fitness center owner Kimberly DeMile hasn’t always been healthy.

After gaining 70 pounds during her pregnancy, she loathed her body. DeMile bought junk food for her children but ate it herself. She put pressure on herself to look good for her husband.

After several positive changes, however, DeMile is now dubbed the “healthy mom” and often has conversations with her 12- and 15-year-old daughters about the importance of being “healthy” over being “fit” — a body image often displayed over social media.

“My little 12-year-old will sit at the counter and go, ‘Look at my thighs, look how fat they are,’ ” DeMile, the owner of the Federal Way Jazzercise Fitness Center, said. “… They’re doing this, and I’m thinking, ‘Shoot, I’m a health coach and fitness owner, but you can’t save them from what they’re hearing at school.’ ”

Being healthy means exercising every other day and eating whole foods with the occasional treat, she said. Being fit means training for hours in the gym with a regimented food plan.

DeMile said neither is right or wrong, but if young girls aspire to be as thin as Instagram models, they need to first ask themselves why.

“Why do you really want to look like that? What’s up here? So, you look like that, now what?” she said. “Because if you’re not happy with yourself inside, no matter how thin and cut and ripped you are, none of that’s going to matter.”

Having worked in physical education classes in local high schools before she opened the Federal Way Jazzercise last year, DeMile said she has seen teenage girls leading unhealthy lifestyles.

“There’s so many girls not doing anything,” she said. “They’re not the jock kids … They’re heavy because of the habits they’re learning at home, and they feel hopeless, but yet, I’ll watch them at the school busting a move, and they may enjoy that.”

It’s these girls — the ones looking to have a healthy, balanced life — that DeMile and the new Jazzercise GirlForce program are trying to reach.

Launched with the new year, Jazzercise, Inc., will offer free classes to girls ages 16 to 21 for the entire 2017 year.

Jazzercise, Inc., CEO and founder Judi Sheppard Missett got the idea to launch the program after attending a women’s summit in Washington D.C. last June.

It is the first corporate initiative the company has launched despite the $28 million raised for charities in their 47 years.

With a focus on health, DeMile’s goals for girls in the program are to help them break through the stigmas of what they are supposed to look like and focus instead on, “Can you go out and run on the beach when you have a vacation with your family?”

Her fitness studio does not have mirrors, unlike many other dance classes, so that people don’t feel self conscious.

Those who join the program would be integrated into the current classs schedules.

DeMile said the mix allows mothers to join their daughters on their newfound health journey, or it provides girls an opportunity to connect with other more-experienced members.

DeMile said if GirlForce members leave her fitness center in a year and say, “That was awesome. Now I can walk into a room. It’s OK I have a little here or there because I just busted it in there and I can move” and be accepted for who they are, then she hopes that mindset will turn into action — action that leads to being active for the rest of their lives, eating healthier and living a more whole life.

“Then if the kids go home and help the parents change, that’s good too,” she said. “Sometimes it’s cultural and sometimes it’s, ‘This is what my mom did, this is what my grandma did,’ and these girls think because everyone in their family is obese, that’s their destiny. I tell them obesity is not hereditary, bad habits are.”

Jazzercise classes are mixed with cardio and strength training and last an hour.

DeMile said the average person can burn between 600 and 800 calories per class but stated that number could be higher depending on the level of strength training and the recovery a person’s body undergoes afterwards.

Girls who are interested in joining the GirlForce program can find more information at jazzercise.com/GirlForce, or follow @jazzerciseinc on its Instagram page.