Kim Kardashian in a pink bikini on the cover of Cleo magazine

Kim Kardashian is curvy woman and proud of it — these days. But she didn’t always feel that way. Like other young women, she was self-conscious about her figure because of the fashion industry’s idealization of skinny models.

As a teen, the bootylicious reality TV maven confesses that she wished she were skinny and less voluptuous.

“I grew up looking at skinny models and feeling like I didn’t relate,” Kardashian, 30, tells the November 2010 issue of Cleo magazine.

“So when people come up to me and say they’re proud that they have someone they can look up to who has curves, I’m honored.”

Kim, who recently celebrated her 30th birthday with lavish parties in Las Vegas and New York, confesses that as a kid she wanted to look more like her older sister, Kourtney, 31, who is five feet tall.

“Kourtney and I are around the same age but I developed quicker and was curvier than her,” the 5’1″ Kim recounts. “There was never any weird competition, but there was just me wishing I looked a bit more like Kourtney.”

Ironically, Kim’s younger sister, the 5’10″ Khloe, spent all her life being compared to her two petite sisters and wished she looked more like them.

“I’ve been bullied, basically, my entire life. I’ve been compared to my sisters since the day I was born,” said Khloe, who has been teased all her life for being overweight.

I don’t look exactly like them. I’m bigger than them, but I’m me. I’m just always told how big I am,” she recounts.

All three Kardashian girls now work out regularly and eat healthier, thanks to the pressures of constant media scrutiny over their looks and size.

Kim, who released her own exercise DVD, clothing line and fragrance recently, works out with a trainer several times a week, runs on the treadmill and does lots of squats and lunges to keep her curvy physique in shape.

Kim has been posing naked a lot recently. In her most recent shoot, she appeared nude in the November 2010 issue of W magazine.

But now she insists she may be hanging up posing in her birthday suit, although she said the same thing after posing for Playboy.

“I’m really honored [W] chose me for the art issue,” says Kim. “It turned out beautifully, and I love it.”

But, Kardashian added: “I don’t know [if I'll pose nude again]. I’m too old for that now…I wanted to get it all out of my system before I turned 30.”