Pageant Platform Speech

This is my platform speech for the pageant I was in. My platform was Eating Disorder Awareness.


Eating Disorders: “I’m More Than Just a Number”

Numbers define nearly everything in our society. We use numbers to define our shoe size, our clothing size, our weight, and our age. We have even reached the point where we label ourselves with a number, and use that number to define our self-worth. We sometimes take drastic measures as we try to lower our number in an effort to raise our self-worth.

Every year 5 million Americans are diagnosed with a suppressive eating disorder. With such a high rate eating disorders have now become more common than Alzheimer’s disease and are the number one killer of all mental illnesses.

While eating disorders have many causes, our media plays a large role in nearly all cases. The majority of eating disorders begin between the ages of 15 and 19, the most influential years of a teenager’s life.

In 1995 the beautiful country of Fiji was introduced to western television. Before its arrival women believed that fat was beautiful. Thin women were seen as weak, and so women tried for robust, well-muscled bodies. But after 38 months of watching western television 74% of Fiji’s teenage girls believed that they were too big, and 15% had resorted to vomiting in an effort to look like the women on their new favorite shows.

At the Montevideo fashion week in June of 2006, Luisell Ramos, a Uruguayan model passed away at the age of 22. She died of heart failure as a result of her eating disorder – anorexia nervosa. Her death forced fashion officials around the world to take a look at their models and the influence they have on their audiences.

Officials of the Madrid fashion week decided to take a stand against eating disorders by banning models that were “too skinny” meaning models with a Body Mass Index rate under 18 (18 being the lowest in the healthy range on the BMI scale). They received criticism and support as they turned away nearly 30% of their models.

Our media has warped our perception to think that we need to be a certain number – a small number. But the models in our media are thinner than 98% of American women. The average American woman is 5’4” and weighs 140 pounds, while the average American model is 5’11” and weighs 117 pounds.


I urge teenagers everywhere to be comfortable with your body, and not to look to the media for an example of who you should be. Be strong in being who you are and accept these words of Stephen Schwartz as your anthem when he wrote:

I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game

Play your own game, make your own rules, and most importantly; don’t let numbers define who you are, because you’re more than just a number.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIeDG2ienNs