Body Images with Amaya & Veronica: A Review
Last night I took advantage of the opportunity to attend the Body Image presentation given by Amaya Brecher and Veronica Portillo, formerly of the Real World and Road Rules (respectively) fame. While the premise of the presentation was good-hearted, the content fell remarkably short of any sort of expectations which I possessed upon entering the Dome Room (of the Rankin Center, on the FSU campus).
Amaya and Veronica, as mentioned before, spent some time on a couple of cable TV “reality” shows on an over-watched channel directed towards adolescents. I got the impression during the presentation that after they over-stayed their welcome on cable TV, they longed for some more publicity; perhaps feeling as though they only got 14 and a half minutes of fame, when in all actuality, they pushed the 20 minute mark.
The actual “presentation” was laughable at best, and Amaya and Veronica consistently treated the crowd like middle school students. All of the facts and information they presented on PowerPoint were weak and looked as though it was put together just moments before the show. Endless slides throughout the presentation were of rail-thin celebrities, and how they must have an eating disorder. Neither of the two were doctors, yet they could diagnose anorexia from a single exposed rib.
Don’t let my tone give the impression that their message wasn’t worth the price of admission (free). They discussed a very serious topic amongst our culture, eating disorders. The most valuable information they conveyed the whole night were some compelling real life tales of the horror caused by eating disorders. Amaya hunched over the toilet, sobbing uncontrollably as she pictured sickening visions to aid her vomiting. Veronica surviving an entire summer eating only a single piece of chocolate cake each day from the restaurant where she worked. The horrifying happenings which occurred inside of California sorority houses in regards to total food intake. Remarkable and astonishing.
What I didn’t appreciate whatsoever was the tone they conveyed through the presentation. It appears as though that these two young women had eating disorders because society drove them to it. Due to Barbie’s phenomenal dimensions, print ad’s, commercials, TV and movies, these two women were forced to ruin their lives. No personal choices or decisions involved here, just the relentless pressure faced by living in America.
While the idea that our society pressures people to look a certain way is far from being a falsehood, the idea that these two women had no opportunity to live a regular life, eating disorder free, is far more extreme. For whatever reason, they failed to mention what their family lives were like when young, just how much self-confidence they lacked, and how susceptible they were to outside forces. Did they have a choice? Maybe?
This does not mean I wouldn’t recommend going to see this presentation if the opportunity presents itself. What it does mean is that you should take value out of what is given; gruesome personal accounts of growing up with a serious health issue. The rest of the time you should play tic-tac-toe with your neighbor.
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