Last Updated: 2002-10-23 10:01:33 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Alison McCook

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters Health) - Miss America pageant winners are thinner than ever before, and look nothing like the average US woman, new study findings suggest.

Researchers at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, found that only 23% of pageant winners had what is considered to be a normal body mass index (BMI), while 26% were so thin they met the World Health Organization's criteria for being undernourished. Two especially underweight winners would have been classified by the American Psychiatric Association as anorexic, the authors note.

BMI is a measure of body weight in relation to height.

Importantly, the authors note, the size of pageant winners has dropped since the 1920s. Now, especially, these svelte figures that are often held up as an example for all US women to follow may be causing young women to feel insecure about their own bodies, they add.

"There are a lot of young women who are looking at fashion magazines, who are looking at all kinds of media, and they are saying that it really does affect them, and that they want to look like these people in the media," study author Dr. Carol Byrd-Bredbenner told Reuters Health.

During the study, Byrd-Bredbenner and her co-author Jessica Murray compiled the body measurements from all Miss America pageant winners from 1921 to 2002.

According to the findings, which the authors presented here on Tuesday during the 85th Annual Meeting of the American Dietetic Association (ADA), the weight and BMI of Miss America pageant winners has steadily declined since the 1920s. ADA is a professional organization representing the nation's licensed nutritionists and dietitians.

Side-by-side comparisons of photos of 1920s winners and more recently crowned women especially illustrate the differences, Byrd-Bredbenner said.

"If you look at the ones from the 1920s, they're nice, normal women," she said. "Then you get to the '70s and '80s, and they're just rails."

In terms of other measurements, the authors found that the average pageant winner's waist was around 24 inches, a full 2 inches smaller than the average seen in a woman of a healthy weight, Byrd-Bredbenner noted. Although hip size can change according to a woman's body type, the researcher added that those crowned Miss America tended to have hips that were one inch smaller than those seen in women of healthy weights.

Byrd-Bredbenner suggested that the decline in body size of pageant winners may stem from changing attitudes of what women want to look like--and during the last few decades, thinner has been better.

http://www.reutershealth.com/archiv...023elin022.html

I did an entire thesis on the effect of the media on adolescent body image and researched all about that too. The Ms. America pagent stats are quoted everywhere in the literature because so many of them meet the criteria for being either underweight or anorexic. Most notable was from the 70's onwards the height of the contestants increased, but their weight decreased at the same time!

It's insane!

A 26 inch waist is "the average seen in a woman of a healthy weight"??
That sounds pretty small, not quite the average women I know.

I have a 28 inch waist, my hips are about 34 1/2 to 35 inches. I thought my waist was way to big for my size. Before I started Atkins it was 30. I'm shaped like a boy so I thought I hate my body. I always thought I should have a 25 in waist, but I don't think like that any more.

Thanks
Josie