After being tormented and bullied about her weight for most of her life, 18-year-old Kirstie Mouncey has finally decided to show her critics exactly what she is made of.
The UK teen, who weighs 165 kg, has decided to enter a beauty pageant for larger women because she says she feels beautiful in her own skin.
“I think I’m sending out a positive message about feeling confident with who you are,” she told UK TV show This Morning.
Appearing on the show with her boyfriend Alex Boakye and organiser of the Miss Big Beautiful Woman International contest Emma Walker, Kirstie explained why she decided to join the pageant.
“People were putting me down 24-7 and it made me feel really uncomfortable and not worth anything, so I just thought, like, I’m me, and if people can’t accept that, they can’t, I shouldn’t change for other people, I should just be me,” she said.
Kirstie has been over weight most of her life and began to comfort eat when she was six-years-old following the death of her father. Once she reached high school Kirstie weighed 127 kg and hoped that the teasing would stop once she began college.
“I thought it would be different when I got to college but it was the same,” she said.
Kirstie eventually dropped out of college because she couldn’t take the constant bullying. Now, she hopes to return after finally learning to love the way she looks. Throughout her life Kirstie did try to lose weight, but says she did it more for others than for herself.
“I did it more because people were telling me to lose weight and there was lots of pressure to look a certain way,” she said.
“Obviously for health reasons if I needed to lose weight I would, because health is the most important thing, but then I just think if you love the way you are and you’re comfortable what’s the problem?”
Although the idea of having a beauty pageant for larger women has come under scrutiny for sending out a poor health message, pageant organiser Emma Walker said it was important to encourage overweight people to feel confident.
“A beauty pageant is a good place to show off yourself and be positive,” she said.
Video: See Kirstie Mouncey in the video player above.
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