Becca Schimmel
Staff writer
Everyone knows the 10 Commandments but not everyone has heard of the “Thin Commandments.” Film director Darryl Roberts is bringing his latest documentary, “America the Beautiful 2: The Thin Commandments” to campus this month to raise awareness about eating disorders.
The film, a sequel to “America the Beautiful,” will be shown at 6:30 p.m. on March 12 in the Curris Center Theater. Admission is free. There will be a question and answer session with Roberts following the film.
The Women’s Center is sponsoring the event.
The film premiere of “America the Beautiful 2” was last October in New York.
At Murray State, Roberts will discuss what was edited out of the film and why the particular people featured in the film were chosen.
“(Roberts will) share with us the rest of the story and there’s nothing to replace that,” Jane Etheridge, Women’s Center director, said.
Since the first film was shown on campus the Women’s Center has made it an annual event. The sequel, “America the Beautiful 2: The Thin Commandments” is about dieting and how people portray it across the country.
In the film, Roberts approaches the world of dieting by asking whether it is for health or money. He wonders what changing the obesity charts is really about.
The definition of obesity changed and it has affected some popular actors in Hollywood labeling them obese.
The film shows a few different contributing factors to the problem of eating disorders. In it, Roberts talks to nutritionists, people in the advertising field and those affected by the new standards of a healthy weight.
Carolyn Costin, the clinical founder/director of the Monte Nido Treatment Center in Malibu, Calif., is featured in the film.
“Darryl and I are concerned with people who just don’t like themselves because they don’t have the ideal, standard, thin is in, kind of body,” Costin said via email.
The film aims to educate people on how the American culture focuses on a very small portion of women as their ideal body to aim for and the money that is made from women striving to meet that ideal.
Etheridge went to Memphis, Tenn., to talk to Roberts and get the film featured on campus to continue its tradition of being shown on campus around Eating Disorders Awareness Week each March.
This week was Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Along with the documentary Tuesday, the Women’s Center had a walk-through exhibit on display in the Curris Center Dance Lounge called Mirrors Mess with the Mind.
For more information and a full synopsis of “America the Beautiful 2: The Thin Commandments,” visit americathebeautifuldoc.com.