by Reena Daruwalla, guest writer for Nancy Hayssen.com

I scan for Plus Size news on the internet regularly and there seem to be parallel events taking place in different parts of the world, which are wholly unconnected, but remarkably similar in nature! Does that mean you can be sexy at any size in any part of the world? Perhaps.

One event was organized in Nigeria, the Big and Beautiful Pageant. This pageant was organized with a view to break the norm that beauty pageants are meant for skinny women. The event organizer wanted shake the mindset of a society that views plus size women as unfashionable.

According to the organizers, the skinny woman who is the norm in regular beauty contests, is an alien concept in Africa, and that the African woman should recognize her worth. The fact that the average African woman is in fact plus size, is also sought to be highlighted, with emphasis also placed on brains and courage. This is the second edition of a pageant, the first of which was won by Tope Lawal. And this is not some marginal or fringe contest; the prize for the pageant was a saloon car!

In a whole other geographical area, namely Israel, there is a similar mindset which gave rise to the Fat and Beautiful pageant which aims to show that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. The pageant was far from the usual one with contestants enjoying a tasty treat just before the pageant rather than starving themselves for days on end. I would imagine that this would put the contestants in a far more cheerful and cordial frame of mind.

The minimum qualifying weight for the pageant is 80 kilos (I believe that equals 176 pounds), and this pageant has been around for 15 years now! As one of the contenstants said, “It’s been running for 15 years now, and they take women from all over Israel that are plus-sized and beautiful and proud to be big and beautiful. It’s 20 girls, and we are competing for inner beauty, outer beauty, anything, everything.“

And as Khani Yirmiyahu, this year’s pageant winner put it, “Every woman should enjoy the competition and love herself just the way she is. Thank you.“