by Reena Daruwalla, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com

Yes sometime ago, Whitney Thompson winning the America’s Next Top Model made waves, a ‘plus size’ girl winning the title, but then we concluded that a size 10 is certainly not a plus size.

A real plus size girl who has made ripples in the beauty pageant circuit is Chloe Marshall who won the Miss Surrey title a beauty competition in the United Kingdom.

This title is part of the regional heats for going on to the Miss UK competition. It will be very interesting to see, when she participates in the Miss England competition, whether she is chosen winner, a genuine plus size girl!

Chloe Marshall is a size sixteen and at 5 feet 10 inches she weighs 176 pounds. Chloe Marshall’s critics have called her ‘fat’, ‘unhealthy’ and ‘a bad example’, which is sad, because these people presume that anyone who is a size sixteen must be unhealthy.

In actual fact, Chloe Marshall is at pains to point out that she eats healthy and has a regular exercise regimen. This makes her a lot healthier than a lot of skinny models who never exercise and live on an unhealthy diet of junk.

The important message being sent out by Chloe Marshall winning the Miss Surrey competition is that different people have different body types and are genetically programmed in certain ways to carry less or more weight. Over this one has limited control and given that a person in genetically programmed to carry a certain amount of weight, if that person then tries to attain an impossible body weight for his or her type, then that could be dangerous or unhealthy.

When someone like Chloe Marshall wins a prominent pageant, it not only sends out a positive message to ordinary, regular people, it also widens the scope of the term ‘beauty’. No longer are only a certain size or people thought to be beautiful, the terms is widened to encompass a wider range of people, and more people are permitted to be perceived as beautiful!