UTSA hosts free showing of documentary on American beauty obsession

(Feb. 18, 2010)-UTSA Counseling Services will host a screening of the award winning documentary film "America the Beautiful" at 6 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 25 in Recreation and Wellness Center Room 1.806 on the Main Campus. The screening is free and open to the public.

Shown during National Eating Disorders Month, the film examines America's obsession with the perfect body. Nearly 40,000 media messages each year tell readers and viewers that unless you look like a supermodel or rock star, you're not good enough for anyone to love. And, it's a message that many people are buying.

Filmmaker Darryl Roberts' two-year documentary journey exposes secrets, confessions and strikingly harsh realities as he unearths the origins and deadly risks of our nation's quest for physical perfection. The film is provocative and sometimes startling, showing how these increasingly unattainable images contribute greatly to the rise in low self-esteem, body dismorphia and eating disorders for young women and girls who also happen to be the beauty industry's largest consumers.

A physician in the film says that many young women ask for surgery to look like air-brushed photos of models in magazines. The problem is the images don't look like the real people and often cannot be duplicated in real life.

For more information, contact: Diana Petta Wallace, Counseling Services, at 210-458-4140.