When she first heard those two words from her then-boyfriend, when she was in her early 20s, María Conchita Alonso never imagined the power they would have over her.
At that time, she was already a star in Venezuela and had starred in some soap operas and was taking the first steps towards internationalization, but that young man threw a phrase at her that would mark her life forever: “You are fat”.
“The boyfriend I had, beautiful, spectacular, an impressive musician, but at that time he wasn’t doing well and he started telling me: ‘You’re fat,’” she recalled in an interview with Yordi Rosado.
Although she was born in Cuba, María Conchita moved to Venezuela with her family when she was just five years old and, thanks to her beauty, she began to stand out at a very young age thanks to her participation in different beauty pageants, such as Miss Venezuela and Miss World. in which he was a finalist.
Very soon he would achieve stardom as a singer, thanks to songs like “Acaríciame” and “Noche de drinks”; and the great leap to Hollywood, where she shared credits with actors of the stature of Robin Williams, Michael Keaton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sean Penn and Robert Duvall, among many others.
Nevertheless, The insecurity that that ex-boyfriend instilled in her caused an eating disorder that turned into anorexia. “When he told me all those things, I stopped eating. I bought a little book on carbohydrates and the only thing I ate was pure fat, diet soda and coffee, nothing else, I became very skinny,” she recalled.
First it was anorexia and, years later, she became bulimicduring a trip to Mexico to promote his album ‘Acaríciame’, when he felt guilty after eating a bag of chocolates that he found in the refrigerator.
“I say: ‘I’m going to gain weight, I’m going to gain weight’ and I go and vomit, I didn’t know there was something called bulimia and I say ‘wow, I can eat and then I throw it away’ and that’s how I started. Once a day, after twice a day and then everything I put into it.”
Anorexia and bulimia, according to the medical encyclopedia medlineplus.gov, are eating disorders that cause people to weigh less than they should, according to their age and height.
People with anorexia often resort to extreme and unhealthy diets, while those who suffer from bulimia have “regular episodes of eating a large amount of food (binge eating)”, and then use “various forms, such as vomiting or using laxatives (purging). , to avoid weight gain.”
Both disorders can cause serious health problems.
Over time, María Conchita began to notice that something was wrong. She lived in New York and, one day, while looking in her mirror, she began to notice small red dots on her face and neck.
“My veins had burst and I couldn’t go to sleep because I felt like a knife here – in my chest -,” he recalled.
A dear friend recommended a specialist doctor, who finally helped her overcome the disease thanks to a treatment that, she claims, saved her life.
“The doctor was the one who saved me, I had opened a hole in my esophagus that was like a knife that cut me, that’s why I couldn’t lie down to sleep because the air was coming out of me. That closed itself,” he explained.
The actress recognized that it is an everyday struggle, since relapses are part of the rehabilitation of diseases such as bulimia. That is why he has decided to speak publicly about these issues, not only in the interview with Yordi but in international media such as People magazine or the television program The View.
“Bulimia is something that stays with you for the rest of your life, there is no 100% cure for it,” he emphasized.
“To help women, today there are many men also doing it. “That they don’t feel bad, that they have to talk, that they don’t feel sorry, that they don’t be afraid.”
