A dinner conversation about what makes a woman beautiful served as the catalyst for an award-winning documentary on the subject.

Written, directed and narrated by Darryl Roberts, America The Beautiful explores society's obsession with beauty and weight.

The filmmaker decided to tackle the subject after he and a friend had a revealing chat about what they found attractive in women. That made Roberts think about two failed relationships.

"They were both beautiful on the inside," he says. "At the time, I didn't marry either one of them because I wanted someone like them, but who looked like the women on TV."

Roberts had his own social marketing company and spent time with basketball star Michael Jordan, who was regularly surrounded by attractive models.

"I wanted my girlfriend to look like a groupie, basically," he says. "That never happened ... And it made me think that if I already had such a wonderful woman why was the looks part so important?"

The documentary took five years, two of which were spent in editing more than 900 hours of raw footage into 110 minutes.

But the result was worth the effort. Initially released in 2007, America The Beautiful has won major awards.

One of the movie's most intriguing subjects is teenage model Gerren Taylor, who took the fashion world by storm when she was just 12-years-old. But because of her mother's overzealous management and natural weight gain, Gerren was discarded by the industry within two years.

Roberts' camera was there when the slender teenager was told by a French modelling company she was too fat to work.

But Roberts' says the blame shouldn't lie solely with the fashion industry.

"Was she taken in by the fashion industry? They couldn't take her in unless her mother allowed her to model. Who was really looking out for her? The industry couldn't have preyed on her if she wasn't put out there to be preyed upon. Women are really responding to the film," he says. "I can see the little things people are doing to change. Most notably, people I've talked to are cancelling their plastic surgery appointments after seeing the film."