Elizabeth Anne Velásquez (born March 13, 1989) is an American motivational speaker, author, and YouTuber. She was born with an extremely rare congenital disease called Marfanoid–progeroid–lipodystrophy syndrome that, among other symptoms, prevents her from accumulating body fat and gaining weight. Her conditions resulted in bullying during her childhood. During her teenage years, she faced cyber bullying, which ultimately inspired her to take up motivational speaking.
Velásquez's condition is a very rare, previously undiagnosed and non-terminal genetic disorder.Her condition bears similarities to many other conditions, especially progeria. Medical researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center previously speculated that it may be a form of neonatal progeroid syndrome(NPS) (Wiedemann-Rautenstrauch syndrome), which does not affect Velásquez's healthy bones, organs, and teeth.
Velásquez is medically unable to gain weight, which is a hallmark of her rare disorder.She has never weighed more than 29 kg (64 lbs), and reportedly has almost 0% body fat.Moreover, she is required to eat many small meals and snacks throughout the day, averaging between 5,000 and 8,000 calories daily.Additionally, she is blind in her right eye, which began to cloud over when she was 4, and she is vision-impaired in her left eye.
Around 2015, it was elucidated that Lizzie Velasquez and another woman named Abby Solomon with a similar but less severe variant of the condition have mutations in the FBN1 gene, which encodes the proprotein of the novel hormone asprosin, and that this mutation results in asprosin deficiency and is responsible for their conditions.The condition is specifically called Marfanoid–progeroid–lipodystrophy syndrome or simply Marfan lipodystrophy syndrome.
She was first bullied at school for looking different and then online as a teenager.
When Velasquez was 17, she came across a YouTube video labelling her “the world’s ugliest woman” that had been watched over four million times.
One of the comments said: “Do the world a favour and put a gun to your head.” Others called her a "monster", told her parents to "kill it with fire" and said they should have aborted her.
But instead of causing Velasquez to shrink from public life, the video inspired her to start an anti-bullying campaign that led to the 2013 TED talk bringing her to international attention.
Footage of her inspiring speech now has almost 7.2 million views on YouTube and its success inspired the creation of the documentary - A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez story. back in 2015.
Comments
Post a Comment