Miss BBW UK 2010: Big is the New Beautiful…

It might sound odd to say that one of the year’s most exciting, progressive, and heart-warming events is a beauty pageant, but this particular pageant is different. In June, Linda Koch, a British entrepreneur, hosted the country’s first annual 18-plus beauty contest.

Size 18, that is. For us Americans, that equals size 16.

The ‘Miss Big Beautiful Woman: United Kingdom’ contest featured over three hundred of Britain’s most beautiful plus-sized ladies. These gorgeous women traveled from all over to the Manchester nightclub to participate. Ms. Koch, who is also a voluptuous beauty at U.S. size 22, has based the last 15 years of her career on hosting special plus-sized girls’-night-out events (see Big Girls Paradise) and dating sites for bigger women and the men who love them. She even has a team of ‘kittens’: curvy, sexy ladies who dress similarly to playboy bunnies. Her events, sites, and newsletters have been extremely well-received in Britain.

Photo Courtesy of Danielle M. Fletcher

Tina Reaney, 2nd Place Winner

Despite being hailed as the first BBW pageant, this event is not the first of its kind, even in England. In 2008, Wilkes Productions hosted a big beautiful woman pageant in Philadelphia. Other organizations include Miss Plus America, Plus Size Power, and Britain’s own Charlotte Coyle’s “Fat Beauty Contest.”  Plus Pageantry offers women numerous links to local plus-sized pageants in their area, for those who are interested in getting involved in the scene.

The girls we interviewed noted that there was none of the usual backstabbing and cattiness that typically comes with a beauty pageant.  “What I will always remember the most is the solidarity that we girls built up; there was simply no back biting. Everyone was there to help and support everyone else as one big group. No one was out for themselves and everyone genuinely wanted the next girl to do well,” Tina Reaney, the second-place winner, told us.

“The pageant has most definitely helped me make friends for life,” Fifth-place winner Heaven-Leigh Ellison agrees.  “It’s an amazing bonding experience. We can sit there in years to come and smile, knowing that we helped make history with some of the most lovely people I’ve ever met in my life.” The others are similarly amazed by how positive the whole experience was.

Heaven Leigh Ellison, 5th Place Winner

For nine months, hundreds of women competed in local ‘heats’ in order to make it to the final event in June. Linda Koch has confirmed that this will be an annual event, thanks to the outstanding success of the first pageant. The contest featured women of all ages, skin colors, and backgrounds. Laura Morrod, the first place winner, is a 21-year-old florist from Somerset. Tina Reaney is a 32-year-old who works with horses and lives in Walsell; Michelle Blundell is a 40-year-old care worker from south London and mother to two supportive almost-adult children. All of the women have full, interesting lives, because as one contestant puts it, “the world doesn’t stop just because you gain a dress size”.

Few Whiners, Many Catcalls and Positive Remarks

As predicted, a few people lambasted the pageant for ‘promoting obesity’, but the complainers seem to be a loud minority. The response most of the girls reported was overwhelmingly positive.  “My friends have been amazing,” says Laura. “And the local community have really stepped up to support my business in light of my recent successes.”  She also has several fans cheering her on via a Facebook page.

Laura Morrod, Crowned Miss BBW: UK 2010, Accompanied by Two Buff Bodyguards

Heaven-Leigh received a similar reaction. “I created a group on Facebook, so anyone could… comment honestly and give their opinion. I was overwhelmed with the sheer amount of positive feedback from men and women telling me to go for it… Once the group hit 2000 members, I knew there was no going back and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”  Tina also had success with a Facebook group. “Over a thousand people joined the first week.  …Offline it was the same… Even the local horse feed suppliers were behind me and had the newspaper clip on the wall.”

Dionne Da Costa, however, had a different experience with the internet than Tina and Heaven-Leigh. “I have had less positive feedback from people about my size online,” the second runner-up notes. “They use the internet to be able to namecall.” Despite the ‘net bullies, she says she received a lot of support from friends in real life.

And as these sizzling divas walked onto the stage for the first time, the room exploded with catcalls and excited shouts. Men in the audience eagerly described them as sexy, confident, and womanly. If there was any booing, it was lost in the sea of delighted cheers.

Why Participate?

Michelle Blundell, 4th Place Winner

“I saw the contest as a fantastic personal challenge, and it was exciting as I had not seen a competition for BBW in the UK before,” Dionne explains. And Michelle elaborates: “I decided to enter as a confidence building experience, as well as an empowering exercise. They say that life begins at 40… So I decided to give it a little help, with a push in the right direction.”

Laura expresses a similar view. “I had turned a corner in my life where I had decided that I was going to stop trying to please other people and start liking myself the way I am, and I thought, ‘what a fantastic opportunity it would be to build my confidence!’ Obviously it could have backfired on me, but luckily it didn’t!”

Others had loftier reasons for entering. As Heaven-Leigh puts it, “We needed to let the world know that it is possible to be plus size, intelligent, and beautiful. I’ve always wanted to inspire people, and… I realized that the Miss BBW United Kingdom Pageant could be the key. My views on abolishing fat prejudice and discrimination would be heard. I could hopefully both inspire and provoke thought in a medium in which I felt comfortable and accepted.”

Advice to Clothing Manufacturers

When asked if they had any suggestions for people in the fashion industry, the women had several things they agreed on.  “Don’t be scared to experiment with opening a plus size clothing line,” Dionne encourages them.  Laura chimes in, “we are not all frumpy 70-year-old women! I would be in absolute heaven if young fashion brands…went up to a bigger size. And believe me, their bank balances would be extremely healthy for it!”

“They are missing out on filling a multi-million pound gap in the retail market,” Michelle points out. “Big women want to wear stylish clothes and accessories, and these are very hard to find in the high street.”

Given that young, hip, plus-sized women are becoming a major marketing audience, savvy fashion experts would do well to heed these ladies’ advice!  And many of them already are.   Former model Gwen Devoe hosted a plus-size fashion show around the same time as the Miss BBW: UK pageant to showcase her sexy styles.  “Every curvy girl that has a dollar is willing to spend that dollar,” she tells the New York Times. “It just makes business sense.”  Trendy stores like Target and Forever21 recently figured this out and began offering many of the same cute styles they’re known for in larger sizes. Of course, Lane Bryant and the other stores connected to it (Fashion Bug, Caciques, Catherines) have been making more stylish plus-sized clothing for ladies in the U.S. since 1920.

The Jitters

The ladies admitted some of their fears about the competition to us.  “It was nervewracking at first, answering questions to the host onstage, but I soon warmed to it and it became fun,” Dionne recalls. Michelle was also afraid of public speaking, but says she’s proud now that she got through it. And Tina was worried she might trip and fall flat on her face.  (She didn’t.)

Dionne Da Costa, 3rd Place Winner

Others were more concerned about the attention the pageant would receive.   Obviously there are people that completely miss the point and see it as promoting obesity, when it really isn’t,” Laura laments. Heaven-Leigh expressed similar concerns. “Whilst positive attention would be amazing, I was worried that negative attention would mean that my stance against fat prejudice would be laughed at.”

“My biggest fears were that people would think that I was trying to glamorize or encourage obesity, which I absolutely was not,” Tina says. “However I also do not think that just because I am fat I should be considered… a second class citizen. Nor do I think I should hide in a house and never be seen in public. The stereotype that a fat person has to change in order for other people to view us differently– this competition does help towards that change.”

“I didn’t walk into the pageant thinking ‘fat is where it’s at,’ I walked in there wanting to let people know that beauty doesn’t have any size boundaries.” Heaven-Leigh says. “You can be hot at a size 8, and you can be hot at a size 28.”

This gets Tina really fired up. “People in general look down their noses at fat women. They have a pre-disposed instinct to think of us as useless or lazy. On a recent newspaper article about the competition, there was a chance to leave comments about it, and some… had fair ones, like about health, but some were just downright nasty. If I had the chance, I would love to be able to put this to them: in the competition we girls have many different jobs and backgrounds… If, for instance, you had to rush your nan to hospital for a life saving operation, would you refuse to have Simone attend during her operation simply because she is fat? Would you refuse to buy your wedding flowers off Laura? Would you refuse your autistic son to be allowed to feel his first ever steps on the back of a horse… simply because it was me taking him? NO! You would shake us by the hand and thank us for everything we have done. People should be less quick to judge others, and they need to remember that while they are looking at and judging a person, that person is looking and judging right back at them!”

The Winners! Left to Right: Dionne, Laura, and Tina.

Damaging Social Stigma

You don’t have to be overweight to realize how unfortunately prevalent ‘fatphobia’ is in the western world. The media and laypeople alike are full of panic over the obesity ‘epidemic’, and most of the time the subtle (or, often, not subtle at all) implication is that obesity is a moral failing and that people could lose weight if they tried hard enough. For many people, that’s just not the case. The average woman living in England or the United States wears a U.S. size 14. We live in an age full of high stress lifestyles, sedentary jobs, untested additives in our food, and far higher rates of many diseases and medications that affect weight than ever before. There is significant debate over whether obesity is always necessarily the cause of illness (such as joint problems, diabetes, or heart depression), or whether illness is too often the cause of obesity. For example, if an average-sized person develops any of the afore-mentioned problems, the bedrest or medication necessary to get them better could easily pack on a large amount of weight that can be hard to get off. Then it becomes a game of the-chicken-or-the-egg. Is the patient diabetic and depressed because they’re obese, or did they become obese due to using insulin and SSRI’s?

But the fact of the matter is that regardless of whether someone can control their weight or not, it shouldn’t be a stranger’s business.  We humans are not here to decorate anyone else’s world, and the only person we should change ourselves for is, you guessed it, ourselves.   The only person with any right to bring up someone else’s weight is that person’s doctor, and even then there should be sensitivity, understanding, and a whole body approach if their weight poses a threat to their health. And yet strangers continue to offer unwanted suggestions and insults to anyone who doesn’t look like they just stepped off a Paris runway.

For many overweight people, especially women, the comments and snickers can be unbearable. Laura Morrod explained that she had to be homeschooled due to the teasing she experienced at school.  She talks of feeling like a failure because she wasn’t a size 8 like her sister. And the middle- and high-schoolers are only partially to blame; if it were not socially acceptable for their parents to make fun of overweight people, they probably wouldn’t have picked up on it.

To the naysayers who complain this pageant is promoting obesity and encouraging others to think ‘being fat is healthy’, I say this: what about the models who promote anorexia and encourage others to think being bony is healthy? Very few women will aspire to be overweight, but we know that many young women do work incredibly hard to become emaciated. Being underweight is the deadliest body size, and people who are overweight frequently live the longest. Obesity can lead to some health problems, certainly, but so can being underweight. Why does society have such a double standard on this issue?

I think all of the participants are drop-dead gorgeous and sexy as could be. As a plain-looking size 12, I would happily trade bodies with any of them in a heartbeat. There’s far more to beauty than dress size, or even hairstyle and makeup. These women are beautiful inside and out, and they’re happy and confident about how they look. I would much rather go out for a night on the town with any of these vivacious goddesses than some of the unhappy ‘conventionally’ beautiful girls I’ve met.

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1. The UK Hosts an Amazing Plus Size Pagent