We met with and interviewed gorgeous, Australian model, Victoria Lee.  We were so excited to meet her and hear about a perspective completely different from anyone else we had talked to.  We had interviewed women who worked in advertising and women who worked in engineering, but we never worked with someone who’s body was changed and edited in media.  Victoria explained to us about how models are portrayed as one thing, women who starve themselves and smoke, drink, and party nonstop, which makes young girls feel that it is okay to starve themselves, and smoke, drink, and party nonstop because it will make them look like models, but this stereotype is very untrue.  Victoria explained her lengthy process of staying in shape.  Of course she had to watch what she ate, but in order to remain as skinny as possible, she ate very healthily.  Secondly, Victoria explained how important it was for her to work out and she did so more than four days a week.  For Ms. Lee, modeling was less about the glamorous lifestyle and over the top clothing, it was about the opportunity to leave her hometown and travel without the classic 9:00 to 5:00 job.  She spend a majority of the interview explaining her difficult schedule which we had not even considered.  Often, Victoria would have to leave visits with her family and friends to get to a job the next day, which is very difficult when she is visiting her home in Australia.

The most important topic that we discussed was that Victoria had no control of how she was portrayed in the media.  She can choose what jobs to take, but she cannot choose how she is edited and how she ends up looking.  This is really sad and tells us so much about the media.  Overall, I think that this interview was so interesting and a whole new perspective that I am so thankful we got to hear.