Mexican TV Star Marco Antonio Regil Urges Latino Youth to Adopt Healthy, Humane Diets to Help Prevent Disease and Obesity
For Immediate Release:
October 23, 2012
Contact:
Wendy Wegner 202-483-7382
Los Angeles -- In anticipation of the launch of PETA's new website, PETALatino.com, in December, the organization has teamed up with renowned television host Marco Antonio Regil to release a Spanish version of PETA's video "Glass Walls"—which takes its name from Paul McCartney's famous quote, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian." Regil—host of MundoFOX's new hit game show Minuto Para Ganar (Minute to Win It) and formerly of Mexico's Atinale Al Precio (The Price Is Right), premiered the new video in person on Tuesday at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles to more than 150 students. PETA members also distributed DVDs of the new video and dished up vegan meals for the students, courtesy of Chipotle restaurant. Photos from the event are available here.
For the first time in California history, Latinos represent a majority of the state's public-school students, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that Mexican-American children between the ages of 6 and 17 are 60 percent more likely to be overweight than non-Hispanic white children. According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, vegetarians and vegans enjoy lower body-mass indexes, lower rates of type 2 diabetes and hypertension, and lower overall cancer rates.
Since going vegan, Regil has felt his own health improve drastically. "I feel younger," he says in an exclusive PETA interview. "I go on and on, taping for hours and hours, and I still have my energy."
"Glass Walls" reveals the extreme suffering that animals endure every day on factory farms and in slaughterhouses: Chickens and turkeys are confined to filthy sheds by the tens of thousands, pigs remain completely conscious while their throats are cut, and fish are dragged out of their marine homes and left to suffocate on the decks of fishing boats.
Regil joins a long list of celebrities—including Rodrigo y Gabriela, Patricia De León, Kate del Castillo, Vida Guerra, Constance Marie, Pablo Azar, and Natalia Villaveces—who have teamed up with PETA to help animals.
Broadcast-quality video footage of "Glass Walls" can be downloaded here, and Regil's exclusive PETA interview can be downloaded here. For more information, please visit PETA.org or PETALatino.com.
