Miss Voluptuous, a beauty pageant celebrating full figured women will be held next month in Pretoria. The pageant is the brainchild of Beaulah Swarts who is organising the event and use it as a means to teach young women to love their bodies and be proud of it. Beauty pageants have changed over the years and Swarts wants to bring back the real purpose of pageants which is to bring back the pride women should have for their bodies no matter the size.
The first modern beauty pageant was during the Eglinton Tournament of 1839 held by Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, a re-enactment of a medieval joust that was held in Scotland.
The pageant was won by Georgiana Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, and she was proclaimed as the ‘Queen of Beauty’.
Entrepreneur Phineas Taylor Barnum staged the first modern American pageant in 1854, but his beauty contest was closed down by public protest.
It was in the 1880s that beauty pageants became more popular.
In 1888, the title of ‘beauty queen’ was awarded to an 18-year-old Creole contestant at a pageant in Spa, Belgium.
Beauty standards have changed over the decades, from full figured women who were celebrated such as Marylin Monroe and Jane Russel to present day thin models as Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid who could fit in a hand purse.
However the change in trends have adverse effects such as body shaming fully figured woman.
This has led to a variety of harmful eating disorders.
In 2015, it was estimated that 1.0 to 4.2% of women have suffered from anorexia in their lifetime.
It has the highest fatality rate of any mental illness and it’s estimated that 4% of anorexic individuals die from complications of the disease.
It is estimated that up to 4% of females in the United States will have bulimia during their lifetime.
Just over 3.9% of these bulimic individuals will die.
Of those practicing bulimia, only 6% obtain treatment.
Just over 2.8 % of American adults will struggle with Binge Eating Disorder (BED) during their lifetime.
Close to 43% of individuals suffering from Binge Eating Disorder will obtain treatment.
5.2% of individuals suffering from eating disorders not otherwise specified die from health complications.
However, Miss Voluptuous, a beauty pageant celebrating full figured woman is seeking to change these statistics.
“The whole purpose of the Miss Voluptuous beauty pageant is twofold; first to raise awareness about women’s health and to educate the public about the struggles these woman face every day of their lives. Secondly this event will launch a public personality namely: “Miss Voluptuous ” that will be the face of the campaign,” Beaulah Swarts.
Starting next month, the competition will not only celebrate fully figure women but will seek to spread the message to the community.
“We will launch a beauty blog that will serve as social media communication vehicle for our message, as well as to help educate and showcase to the target audience, better ways to dress, accessorise, hairstyles and the likes. I would like to teach our new generation that to be skinny does not mean u better or prettier but to accept every person in all shapes and sizes. Beauty is not a dress size but beauty is in the soul,” said Swarts.
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