Overweight Girl Participates in Bikini Contest and Gets Encouragement from the Internet

01/29/2015 - 09h06

Single, aged between 14 and 20, without children.

As she heard this advertisement on the radio, the agriculturalist Cristina Borges Vöss, 34, could only think of one person: her daughter Vanessa, 14, met all the criteria to participate in a beauty pageant called Summer Girl 2015, that is taking place in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Initially, the girl's reaction was not the same.

"She said: 'I'm not going to do it. I'm slightly overweight and, usually, [pageants] are for tall, thin people", Cristina tells, who at any rate enrolled her daughter in the competition.

With blue eyes, 5'3" tall and 154 pounds, Vanessa Braga not only wore a bikini with ten other girls but she also got applause from the public in one of the rounds that took place in her hometown, Canguçu (272km from Porto Alegre).

Vanessa story recalls that of the character Olive, from the film "Little Miss Sunshine", that won two Oscars in 2007.

Far from the conventional beauty standards, Olive travels with her family to participate in a beauty pageant.

Her confidence came from the audience. "I was embarrassed, but they started clapping and saying: 'Go ahead, you can do it', 'You are gorgeous', and so I walked the catwalk."

The teenager did not go through the knock out round at Canguçu, but she won the internet over.

A picture of her received 12 thousand likes and 1.400 comments, of which were mostly words of support. She only heard about all this. Without internet at home, Vanessa is not on Facebook.

Translated by CRISTIANE COSTA LIMA

Read the article in the original language

	Cláudia Peres/Prefeitura de Canguçu
	"I was embarrassed, but they [the audience] started clapping and saying: 'Go ahead, you can do it'", told Vanessa