Miss Colombia Wins Miss Universe Pageant

ANOTHER Miss Universe crowned, another generation of young women chasing standards they most likely cannot meet, not if they want to keep eating solid foods and avoiding plastic surgery.

Yesterday, the beautiful Miss Colombia Paulina Vega donned the crown ahead of runner-up Nia Sanchez from the USA.

Vega, a 22-year-old student, was joined in her excitement by the people of Colombia, who took to the streets to celebrate their victory.

“It felt like home, I felt like I was in Colombia with my people. I felt that support in every moment of the pageant,” Vega said.

Miss Colombia Paulina Vega walks in her swimsuit during the Miss Universe pageant in Miami. Picture: Wilfredo Lee / AP Source: AP 

The support for Miss Universe contestants is particularly powerful in South America but can be mistaken for pressure. As the competition came to a close on Monday, stories of beauty and pain emerged, particularly from Venezuela, home of last year’s Miss Universe.

The New York Post reported that pageant pushers in Venezuela — producer of six Miss Worlds, seven Miss Universes, six Miss Internationals and two Miss Earths — were encouraging girls as young as 12 to get nose jobs and girls as young as 16 to consider breast implants.

Miss Venezuela Migbelis Castellanos poses during the 2015 Miss Universe pageant in Miami. Source: AP

Other girls go under the knife to shed pounds, removing their lower intestine to process food faster.

Other girls go under the knife to shed pounds, removing their lower intestine to process food faster.
The Miss Universe competition is somewhat complicit, given contestants are not required to disclose if they’ve gone under the knife.

The lengths contestants will go to were revealed when Wi May Nava, a Miss Venezuela contestant in 2013, admitted she had mesh sewn to her tongue to prevent her from eating solid foods. That was in addition to breast implants, dental work and a nose job.
The Daily Mail reported parents inject their 8- or 9-year-old daughters with hormones to delay puberty and make them grow taller.

“The dream of every girl in Venezuela is to be Miss Venezuela,” activist Taylee Castellanos told The Post. “They don’t promote ­natural women anymore. They are promoting women who are completely fake, who have had their whole bodies redone.”

Miss Venezuela contestant Wi May Nava. Photo: BBC Source: Supplied

Wi May Nava with plastic mesh sewn on her tongue. Photo: BBC Source: Supplied

Castellanos, 32, of Maracay, is a spokeswoman for the group NO to Biopolymers, YES to Life, which warns girls about the dangers of liquid silicone butt injections.

The activists are up against the nation’s powerful beauty academies — boot camps for glamour girls that encourage surgery and teach girls as young as 4 to catwalk.
Belankazar, the oldest so-called “Miss Factory” in Caracas, is surrounded by plastic-surgery offices. About 600 girls attend the finishing school.

Castellanos was never a pageant contestant but had implants in 2010 that prevented her from walking. Her group is livid over Venezuela’s modelling agents and schools, which often lure families looking for a way out of poverty.

A woman shows a French mammary implant in Caracas, where big breasts and French silicone are all the rage among beauty queens, fashion models and thousands of anonymous women, despite the economic crisis. Source: AFP

“Miss Venezuela is not a good example for women,” Castellanos said. “They’ll do anything to get that look.”
Still, Belankazar’s director, Alexander Velasquez, said the schools are good for Venezuela and “promote a good self-image.”

He admitted that most of his pupils’ parents have low incomes — often making just $50 a month and spending half on school fees and dress and makeup expenses.
“I don’t believe Venezuela has the world’s most beautiful women, but we know how to produce beautiful, perfect women,” Velasquez said. “That’s why we excel in all the international beauty competitions.”

Child models at the Belankazar agency. Source: Facebook

Yorgelys Mero, a 15-year-old student at Belankazar, told the Daily Mail her instructors suggested she reshape her nose.
The teen lives in a crumbling house with her grandmother, who paid for braces to fix Mero’s teeth and is prepared to apply for a loan for cosmetic surgery.

“A lot of people have told me that I’m going to need a nose job,” Mero said. “I think I’m beautiful as I am ... But if that’s something I need to do to make it to the top, I will.”
This story originally appeared on the New York Post. Additional reporting by Isabel Vincent