Woman bullied over weight hopes to become first size 16 Miss England
A woman who was bullied at school for her weight has made the finals of the Miss England competition – and hopes to be the first size 16 winner of the pageant.
Milla Magee, 23, was recently crowned ‘Miss Newquay’ and hopes to inspire curvy women, saying she’s not a standard beauty queen.
"All my life I have suffered with [my] body image," Magee explains. "I'm 6ft and was always the tallest at school. I was the only girl standing in a sea of boys, towering above my friends. It gave me a complex."
Magee explains that she ‘always felt big’ after weighing 14st when she was 14 years old, which she says gave her ‘body image dysmorphia’.
"At the time I was trying to conform to an unrealistic match of my body image," she adds. "I didn’t have a representation of what I could look up to of what was me. I always wanted to be petite and small.
"I lost that weight and I was a healthy weight for my height. It was a conflict of as I got older I was trying to match unrealistic expectations."
By entering the pageant, Magee wants to ensure other women that the size of clothes they buy, or the number on the scales, doesn’t define them.
"The most important message is that if you are healthy for your size, that is all that’s important," she explains. “I really want to say that numbers do not define you, neither do small, medium or large.
"We forget at times that brands are sized differently. I’ve been able to squeeze into a size 8. I feel happy buying a size 16 or an extra large. I’m happy in my skin and comfortable. Just because you’re 14 to 16 doesn’t mean you’re bigger."
If Magee, a lifeguard and part-time model, wins the competition next month, she will be the first plus-size woman to do so.
"I think it’s amazing that Miss England is promoting this narrative that you don’t have to be stick thin to be a beauty queen," she adds.
If she wins, she hopes it gives her the platform needed to tackle societies challenging perceptions of female weight gain and help normalise bigger women.
"I hope to inspire generations and young girls that they don’t need to fit into this narrative," Magee says. "I really want to be a voice for these women. Whenever you look at these historic women these are women who were looked up to.
"They were healthy, they were normal. We’ve created an idolised image of what a woman and a man need to look like. We don’t have to weigh ourselves. What numbers we see on the scales don’t define you. We need to stop putting pressure on ourselves."
After being bullied for her weight as a teenager, Magee ditched the scales and says she’s happier not knowing.
Magee is also leading a campaign called Go Far with CPR for CPR to become widely taught in schools while also carrying out beach cleans around the coastlines.
Miss England organiser Angie Beasley says she’s noticed a downward trend in dress sizes in the competition in recent years, compared to the 80s.
"When I used to enter competitions, way back in the 80s, women were curvier and more shapely, most contestants were size 10-12," Beasley says.
"Nowadays the average contestant size is a small size 8. So to see Milla representing real women is a refreshing change."
The Miss England final, sponsored by Watermans Hair, takes place on May 16-17 at the Grand Station in Wolverhampton.
Additional reporting by SWNS.
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