We have reached yet another milestone as a community, one that was critical to our development. A desi of Indian origin has seized the coveted Miss Great Britain title!
With so few beauty pageant titles left unclaimed by the rising tide of brown in swimwear and heels, it was very important that we capture each of the remaining tiaras:
British-born Preeti Desai has become the first person of Indian origin to win the Miss Great Britain title replacing original winner Danielle Lloyd after she was stripped off the award for reportedly dating Judge Teddy Sheringham and agreeing to pose for Playboy magazine. [Link]
As with many winners, she has a heart-warming story behind her victory, one of filial piety:
Preeti gave all credit to her mum, who is recovering, from a serious illness. “When she was crowned Miss Great Britain she rang to tell me and said, ‘The crown is for you.’ I burst into tears. I felt as if I won that crown. I felt as if I am Miss Great Britain. She only wants to see me happy – both my girls do. They want to see me smiling thanks to them I was able to overcome that dreadful illness,” Hema said. [Link]
Like all good desi children, Preeti is multi-talented and ambitious. She worked for years in hair and beauty, before making a career switch to the family fireworks business and she may now be trying to get into property investment. In what I think are her own words:
She then started, and is currently working for the family business G2 Fireworks full time and was made Jr partner, which she built up after years of working for G2 Fireworks from being a child… Recently she decided to move to London and work as a model until she raised enough money to eventually get into the property business. [Link]
If you’re a fan, you can read her myspace page and personal website.
the alopecia question is really interesting seeing that long, lustrous tresses are a sign of beauty in south asia as well.
Oh, ANNA, old lady is my own little joke 🙂 It has more to do with my eternal grumpiness than age…
Actually, anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot of aunties with thinning scalp hair. Diffuse, female pattern androgentic alopecia: basically female pattern baldness. Anyone else notice this phenom?
‘Unsolicited’ blatant public display/advertisement of you being ‘straight’ leaves quite a few…’uneasy’. Not cool bro!
I just had to go there. You know someone had to.
razib, that post is hilarious!
MD, I’m with you on this one. I’ve seen it in my ajji and all five of her sisters. amazing hair until menopause, then…nada.
Wow 16.7 BMI….that’s considered severely underweight.
jeebus, no wonder she looks skinny — she is! 5’8″ and 110 llbs?!?
I think Baz Luhrman put it best:
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
I thought that magazine quote was from the urban-myth-Kurt-Vonnegut commencement speech….
it is a myth, you know.
baz luhrman at least put it in that cool suncreen song.
i’m not giving vonnegut any credit until someone who witnessed the speech comes forward 😛
It’s not THAT severe for a brown girl. The “desirable range” is 19-23. Being at 17 doesn’t make her that unusual. She looks quite ok to me.
Uh oh. I have a feeling you’re going to get a lot of flak for that comment.
NSFW warnings please !!!! We loves the hotties … but we gots to keep the job too.
19-23 is just for those with NO fat not necessarily average. That is the BMI of a skinny woman. And it is simply not normal to not have some fat in a woman. Lack of body fat can interfere in normal menstrual cycles among other deficiencies especially iron deficiency which is a very common thing among brownz. Also the difference of 2 BMI points at that weight is substantial.
The US BMI is 21 – 24 for a woman 5’8. I don’t want to get lost in the semantics about this but 5’8 and 110 IS skinny.
Again before anyone makes this an issue, she is gorgeous, there is no denying that.
All the brown girls I knew in college were Punjabi or Guju and quite a few of the former were 5’8, if not taller. Thanks to friendster, I know exactly what these women look like now and I can safely say that we were all much tinier in college, which seems logical…we were 17-22 years old. We ate sugar, fat and caffeine and still fit in to either size 2 or 4. We all (even short me and my one Guju friend, both of us 5’6 and thus smaller) weighed more than 110 lbs.
If a BMI of “19” is the start of what is desirable, than wouldn’t everything less than that be undesirable?
well, not flak so much… but it is a sad state when underweight “looks ok.” on the other hand, she fits the norm, and is probably heavier than many other western models/”women of great beauty.”
to namitabh, apologies. didn’t mean to imply ALL desis were short. but most of the guratis i know (and since i am one, i know many) are shorter than 5’8″– men or women!
tis okay. i’m not punjabi or gujarati either — my family is from karnataka. so much for stereotypes 🙂
Sure, she is skinny but the U.S. BMI averages are skewed toward overweight people (given the obesity epidemic), mostly white and African American. I don’t think it properly takes into account the Asian body frame (unless someone wants to educate me on this). I agree that she is skinny but I don’t think she is all that unusual.
Sure, but being overweight outside the mean has a LOT more problems associated with it. I guess I am being provocative on purpose. It seems like its more PC to dissect the body of a skinny girl than of an overweight girl which I don’t agree with.
It seems like its more PC to dissect the body of a skinny girl than of an overweight girl which I don’t agree with.
just like itz more PC to diss on the light than the dark?
it ain’t the same bro, it ain’t the same 🙂 but hey, iz ok, you defending a guju sister.
If you had the picture of a fat girl on there you’d get comments about that. Please I’m not skinny and I can assure you no one tries to be PC with people who aren’t skinny!
She’s skinny and hence the discussion because it is a beauty contest and she’s a first so that means she’s setting a precedence and is a role model. And I’m not saying it’s unusual because I know plenty of skinny Indian woman who are perfectly normal and Asians are slimmer. Not denying that.
There is average between underweight and overweight.
Uh…being BOTH under- or overweight can KILL YOU. Neither is healthy. We shouldn’t condemn one less than the other. I’m troubled that being underweight, which is often a result of an eating disorder is something worth defending, even if one is doing so just to be a contrarian.
Sigh. I’d rather write a post on something else than compose a comment which calls you out on your provocateur’s stance. There’s a REASON why it’s not okay to dissect an “overweight” girl– it’s because our sense of what is overweight is so fucked up that we treat a normal, healthy body as if it is obese.
i’m depillating my torso in frustration – poing – although the resulting smooth expanse is strangely appealing – poing- because the concept of race ignores the boinkworthy traits across the so-called divides – poing – ergo – poing – for instance the so called gujjar “race” is quite the tall martial kind – poing – sweer kanhaiyya, i just realized i could be a gujjudude ‘cos my grandies came from gujranwalla – poing – i feel faint – poing – kenneth, it’s 99.1FM.
Again, if she had won that contest and had a bit of a belly roll, I guarantee that anyone who would have mentioned it would have gotten slammed in these comments. But it is more okay to say that she has no ass, etc. I just see that as a double standard is all.
I know quite a few South Asians (men and women) who are somewhat ectomorphic (including most of my family). My mom’s BMI was less than Preeti’s when she was at full term with me. I just don’t think we (and that is a collective we) should have a double standard when it comes to judging people’s bodies.
I’m not defending it and I’m not condemning either one. I am simply pointing out that both “underweight” and “overweight” seem to be on a sliding scale these days and I’d prefer to see nobody dissected for the perception that they are either one.
Why do “we” have to judge it at the first place ? A simple quote like “she’s gorgeous” would suffice.
The author could have put a picture which was less revealing..and “we” wouldn’t have had this discussion (not sure about that!). Why do we have to nitpick every small detail of her body ?
girl, you be smokin’, no matter the nature the arc of the ellipse of your brown skin@
Anna in 71: Werd.
Being underweight as a result of eating disorders can really mess up your body, sometimes long after you get over the ED. I have no numbers, but I’m willing to bet that almost all girls and women, whether or not they even realize it, have (had) some kind of ED at some point in their lives. Because skinny = good, people don’t even think to express concern at the thinning frame; rather, they compliment and validate it. It really isn’t adequately addressed as a health and culture issue.
Abhi:
Maybe in LA/UCLA, maybe in brown and black circles, and maybe on Sepia Mutiny, but it’s still not ok for women to be “overweight” in the mainstream media. Turn on the TV or check out who’s on the covers of beauty magazines. The archetype is still skinny-minny, and that’s more harmful for women than if the archetype were a tad fleshier.
Of course, I don’t disagree with that at all. I’m not trying at all to refute that in my comments here.
As a paleontologist I also trust that evolutionary pressure will determine the archetype of a woman a lot better than any magazine covers or unfair societal pressures. In order to give birth to my offspring a woman’s hips will have to be wide enough and her body will have to be healthy enough (e.g., enough fat) to not reject the child. My naturally-honed man instincts know this better than what the magazines tell me. I’ll have to be healthy too of course.
I swear I’m not that unromantic! 🙂 (I think I just killed my game)
She may not stand out in nutritionally deprived countries (although her BMI is still below the mean), but she certainly does stand out in the UK/US.
I totally agree- she’s hot. The problem arises when girls like me (who are not naturally ectomorphic, to use your word) force their bodies into believing they are, so we have what desi society considers the ‘ideal’ body size.
This is just so that more guys like you (I’m not picking on you, really!) would think we look ‘ok.’ After all, when was the last time you compared someone that was overweight to someone that looked like Miss GB and still used the same adjective? The pressure is on to emulate Miss GB’s body type – and some of us would kill to look that way naturally.
Unfortunately.
According to your very cool and informative link, I’m PAKISTANI! w00t! Sin, I’m moving in, baby. 😀
i think the point of contention is that if she had a bit of a belly roll, she (probably) wouldn’t have won the contest…
😀
Hey Gulaab, when I saw your handle, I didn’t even picture a rose. I, being the way that I am, automatically thought of gulaab jamuns. MMMmmmmm gulaab jamuns… here’s to eating well 🙂
hairy_d, I’m a little heartbroken over here. I was hoping you really were that dahi eating pindoo, with any luck, from the Bihar/UP area (you sure as hell sound like one). sigh
Re: Abhi @ 73
Guru, you should run a graduate course on “honing the man-insticts”, with dem BMIs, statistics on hip widths and all. 😀
I totally agree- she’s hot.
While I’m sure she’s a lovely woman, I long for the days of Madhubala, Hema Malini and Nargis – those women were very beautiful; and having a low BMI didn’t matter. I think the same can be said for the evolving standard in Hollywood – I don’t think there’s an actress as beautiful as Audrey Hepburn nor a guy as good looking as Gregory Peck. The standard these days is a sort of impish boy-man.
How can no one comment on this? Best thing I’ve ever heard.
Also:
Yes, you did just kill your game.
Abhi: YAY! A fellow anthropologist!
Eating disorders: Overeating and food addictions are also eating disorders, and this is something that is mostly ignored in public health.
Case in point of how effed up societal (and I mean US/UK in this case) perceptions are of body image: A few days ago, I was called a “fat whore” (have I mentioned how much I love aggressive alcoholics?). I am 5’10” and 160 lbs soaking wet, size 8/10 pants (did I also mention that I’m incredibly self-absorbed? ;). I think I’m fine and healthy and all that. Apparently, I’m fat in the US. In the UK, I was told numerous times that I “don’t have a weight problem” and when I travel to Bengaluru, my relatives make it their #1 priority to load as many calories as possible into my gastronomic experiences.
IF she is 5’8″, 110 lbs and feeling healthy, then maybe she is fine and we can attribute that to genetics. However, if she is missing her monthly chum, is feeling dizzy, or her hair is thinning/falling out, she may have a serious health problem.
Oh-and the hair thing: my sister has a theory that South Indian aunties possess “lady fur” that accumulates over time. She is referring, of course, to that layer of individually invisible but collectively conspicuous hair that gathers on one’s face.
Also, if I wanted to go into modeling with my stats, I would be ushered into the world of plus-size modeling.
Effed up, I tell ya!
cough – abhi, in order to be a pair, start thinking like a pair…. our offspring!
don’t worry abhi. you can’t kill that which is not alive.
Sweet, caring, nice Abhi does think like this. Animal Abhi however, trapped underneath societal constructs, is a different beast altogether. He only wants food, shelter, sex, and progeny 🙂 (Abhi continues to kill his game in the span of one comment thread).
Ennis:
Why does everything you write have to be about your heterosexuality.? Why do you have to shove it in everyone’s face?
manju: i think brokeback mountain may have something do with it…
or not.
…while making me laugh out loud, so it’s for an awesomely worthy cause. 😉
the contest, is she allowed to eat something?
D:
eeeeeew
I read this thread with Victoria Secret models parading just above the rim of my laptop. So… which should I get first? Implants or bulimia?
…now they’re gonna show me what its like to be them. exciting!
I am somewhere between 5’3″ and 5’4″ (closer to 5’4″, esp. with shoes on), and when I was in the 106-110 pound range, I was repeatedly called “too skinny” and told to “eat something.” I also had to starve myself severely and exercise A LOT to be that skinny. Now, I eat very healthily (although, ahem, dorm food is perhaps the worst crap on Earth, eva, especially to this Indian girl), I’m rarely ever “hungry,” and I don’t get sick nearly as often as I did when I was 110 pounds or so. Of course, now that I’ve put on approx. 20-25 pounds (currently 131 pounds — some of it due to Freshman 15, the rest due to actually EATING), I have repeatedly been called “fat” and told to “lose some weight” by the very people who were appalled when I took on my Oath of Starvation — my parents. Just goes to show, it’s never good enough in society. I personally think losing 10 pounds will do more harm than help, and I’m not willing to do it either (it’s tough enough not starving while being a vegan, living in a DORM!), but once, just once, I’d like someone to look me in the eye and tell me that I don’t need to lose any weight, instead of all this hemming and hawwing about “getting toned” and “fit.” Just once.
Besides, I personally find girls with a little meat on them to be super attractive. Stick figures are soooo not my type.
Agree!
I’m watching it too and I’m planning on doing a huge UGGed out post about it tomorrow. WTF is that? What was that hideous Invasion of Mars shit at the opening? And then the whimsical Ran away with the Circus crap? These women are hot, have fabulous bodies, (yes and are ridiculously skinny except my girl Gisele) and this is the shit they put them in? Who the hell thunk of this ridiculous and crap collection?
Miss Great Britain here is not telling anyone to be thinner than they are. I thinks its crappy to make someone feel bad, even if they are not around, so other people feel ok. In school we had a few girls from india in our class, and they were naturally fairly slim. And they got nasty comments directed at them for no reason at all, as if they were responsible for how other women felt about their bodies. Tell the people who think being healthy weight or overweight to f off, but leave the skinny people alone.
If only i looked like that in ridiculous crap… ? The legs! thats all I want. Well, lets be honest, I’d be happy enough with their shoes =)