Luxe Life Blog

Miss America Kirsten Haglund discusses her battle with anorexia and offers pageant tips to 2009 contestants

Posted January 14, 2009 • 1:42 p.m.

2008 Miss America Kirsten Haglund and her proud parents.

Photo: Tom Donoghue /www.donoghuephotography.com

For 20-year-old Kirsten Haglund, the youngest-ever winner of the Miss America Pageant, this trip to Las Vegas means she will turn over her tiara and present it to the young lady who will step into her high-heeled shoes as the Miss America ambassador for the next 12 months.

The 2008 Miss America competition was only Kirsten’s third pageant! During her 12-month reign, she was a tireless advocate for the Children’s Miracle Network and has raised awareness about eating disorders. Before arriving in Vegas today, Kirsten, who won Miss Michigan before Miss America, talked with pageant coach Valerie Hayes on the radio network Pageant Talk.

“It was never in my plan. I never went with any expectation of winning,” Kirsten said. “In fact, at each pageant I competed in, I was the youngest girl. So I never had any expectation other than to have fun and to win some scholarships, and it all just happened very quickly for me. But of course I feel very blessed to have had the experiences I have had.

“I think I just went into my Miss America interview and into the whole competition process really accepting whatever was meant to be. Because every girl at that level of competition, every girl is prepared; everyone has done their homework. Each one of those girls, you know you’re surrounded by the most talented, smartest women in the country and the most motivated and ones who are going to grow up and really make a difference and be future leaders.

“So it is so hard to compete and decide, what is going to put you -- give you the competitive edge. And you just have to accept whoever is meant to be the Miss America that year; whoever is meant to serve the country is going to because it is right for her in her life at that moment.

“I try to tell a lot of girls that when they are going into the pageant because you can’t possibly do everything right. You can’t make every right decision. You can’t be positive you’re going to make the very best impression on those judges. You just have to go in with no apologies and just know who you are. The person who gets the crown also gets the job for the entire year. It’s about being a people person, it’s about having a magnetic personality, it’s about engaging people. And, you’re public, you know, and it’s about being able to communicate a message.

“It’s being real, being genuine, being someone people can relate to, and that’s the most important part of the job, and that’s why the interview portion with the judges is so important. So it’s really more about having a likable personality and being relatable than really the right evening gown. People want somebody they can relate to, not somebody who is a two-dimensional image on a page. We have enough of those.”

Kirsten revealed to Valerie that she was diagnosed with anorexia when she was 15 years old just before her 16th birthday.

“It came at a very, very low point and actually on a downward spiral from my first kind of diet that I started going on when I was about 12 years old,” Kirsten said. “For me, it was a product of my environment. It wasn’t that I was genetically predisposed to an eating disorder, but I do have a family member who has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and some women in my family struggled with depression, and all of those are risk factors for developing an eating disorder.

“I was involved in ballet from a very young age, and I loved ballet and I still love dance. But it was just a harmful environment to be in because I started to go away to summer ballet programs and be with older dancers succeeding in their careers as professional ballerinas, which was what I wanted to do. That was my passion, that was my life. That was everything for me.

“And I saw that, as I was coming into puberty and adolescence, all of a sudden my body was changing. I was becoming a woman, but I didn’t look like that very thin ideal, and the ideal ballet body types are severely thin. It’s 20 to 30 percent below the ideal weight of your average American woman -- it almost looks unnatural. So I started there the first day when I was 12 and threw away my lunch and had a Coke instead. Then I just started cutting foods out of my diet, and then one food after another and then cutting meals and really disrespecting my body, and then just starving my body, and it kind of spiraled downward from there until one summer I came home and had lost a most significant amount of weight in the shortest period of time.

“And what a lot of people don’t realize is that it is not easy to starve yourself. If a woman is bulimic, to binge and purge you become depressed, and none of my friends wanted to be around me anymore because I became this crazy person. You get very depressed, and the saddest thing about me was the reason I had fallen into that cycle is because I loved ballet so much, but because I was depressed from not feeding myself, I no longer found passion in ballet. I no longer wanted to be with my friends; I no longer wanted to do anything, and all of that passion and that flame had died. And I was no longer the person that I was, but the happy thing is that it was from there that my mom took me to the doctor.

“It’s really sad; your eating disorder turns you into someone you’re not, and I really wanted people to notice and I wanted people to give me outside reassurance that I was thin and beautiful, but I wasn’t. It was not at all beautiful. I was sick. I had in some of the areas of my body less than 80 percent of the bone density, and some areas of my body, I was at risk for osteoporosis and from that I could die from heart failure, from a heart attack at 15 years of age! That really shocked me into getting better. I realized that I didn’t want to die, that there were too many things that I wanted to do in my life and accomplish and achieve.

“So I made the choice that I wanted to get better and I wanted to accept help, and so I did. It was a long process to get physically healthy and stay mentally and emotionally healthy. I think a lot of girls need to hear that message, and that’s why I chose that as my platform. I tell them and educate them a little bit about what eating disorders are. What anorexia is, what bulimia is, about what binge eating disorder is; not only the statistics but also helping them realize that it’s really a manifestation of emotional issues. It’s when you’re stressed; it’s when you’re not feeling in control.

“I speak as a victim of an eating disorder but someone who has overcome something and survived. I wanted to be an agent of change from the inside, and I really believe in what Gandhi says, in “be the change you wish to see in the world.” It has been wonderful because every media outlet and opportunity I’ve had, they’ve always looked at that and said, ‘What? A beauty queen talking about eating disorders?’ It’s caused them to ask me about it, so I’ve been able to explain myself.

“I’m the first Miss America who has been able to talk about eating disorders. I’ve been able to change kind of the image of what Miss America is. It’s become an epidemic amongst college age women, and now more and more middle-aged women are developing eating disorders.”

Kirsten has even appeared in Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress with an Eating Disorders Coalition to pass a bill for mental health parity. She promoted a documentary film about beauty and eating disorders.

During her year as Miss America, Kirsten also raised funds for the Children’s Miracle Network. The Miss America Organization itself raised $2 million, and Kirsten visited Wal-Mart stores that raised $48 million.

“It has really been amazing the way that our organization has embraced Children’s Miracle Network,” she said. “It’s only going to continue to go up from there. We’re really excited about the partnership. When you see these adorable kids, there’s no other children’s charity that I’d rather be working with. They’re pretty amazing. You can find out all about my travels on my blog at www.missamerica.org. I love to write, so please visit.”

As the lead-up to the Vegas pageant for Miss America, Kirsten filmed the four-part series Countdown to the Crown currently airing on TLC. Said Kirsten: “I love to be in production environments and to perform. So I just loved being on the TV set. That’s what I loved about the reality show. It’s always so exciting to be there with a team of people who are creating something. It’s a fabulous show. I got to sit in the control room for a lot of it and see all of the different camera angles and see the set-up.

“The sound stages that they built were beautiful. Everything about this show is just beautiful and glamorous, which I think is great and something that was missing in last year’s reality series. It’s a lot more focused on developing each contestant as a well-rounded individual with more things that are relevant to the pageant and the competition, and to the job. It’s a lot more related to talent; the stakes are a lot higher this year, which is neat, and it’s a lot more entertaining. You’ll see me make a few cameos, but I’m there for the fourth episode. It was fun to be able to support the girls and give them a high-five in between takes -- and telling them, ‘You’re all doing great! Keep it up!’ ”

Kirsten admitted that she’s already shopped for her Steven Yearick gowns. She said: “I made a visit to Steven Yearick about a month ago. We’ve got about eight gowns in line for the pageant, and I’m so excited. I’ve got my hairstylist coming in, and she’s going to bring in hair extensions. One day we’re going to do extensions, and the next day we’re going to do short. We’ve got all these fun styles for the pageant, so it’s going to be a big style bonanza. I really loved filming TLC’s Who Are You Wearing?, which was the design kind of challenge. I got to work with a designer who designed a really hot couture number specifically for me, and it was really like a beautiful walking work of art.

“I love Los Angeles, and I love the people I’ve been able to work with. I love the TV work I’ve been able to do, and so I’m looking at moving out there, getting an agent, and I’ve already had some auditions and I’m looking to work in TV and film. So I kind of want to direct my passion for the arts and entertainment in that way. The pageant experience has really helped me. I’m making great networking, but I am looking to go back to school part time. I’m looking at Pepperdine University part time to finish my business major degree.

“Now the 52 contestants will want advice from me as they face the judges, the interviews and the preliminary competitions this coming week. I always tell them to surround themselves with positive people. It’s really important if you really do want to win and perform at your best that you surround yourself with people who are positive and that are treating themselves well, are respecting themselves and the people around them and are keeping a positive attitude. I really believe in the phrase if you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people.

“Secondly, you have to relax and not get too stressed about scheduling and have ample time to prepare pageant week. You should know going in that you’re going to have a lot of rehearsal on stage, but you’re not going to have a lot of personal preparation time. That includes time back stage to get hair and makeup ready; that includes time to prepare for your talent. So just know going in that you’re not going to have a lot of personal preparation time. Don’t get stressed about it; just go with the flow.

“Finally, it doesn’t matter if you’re a spiritual person or not. You need to find alone time to be able to meditate, to pray, to keep connected with yourself, because it can get really overwhelming, all of the emotions. And you need to connect with what is real, and for me that was prayer time, and plus I had a devotional every morning. You need to make sure that you spend time with yourself and realize that there is a life after Miss America, and you’re going to have to live it.

“You have to remember that this is not the end of your life; it is just a steppingstone. So, use it as that; consider that it is just one week of your life, and use it to better your life after that, whatever, wherever that path leads. You’ve got to use it for your future; it is not the be all, end all. It’s just a steppingstone.”

Vegas DeLuxe will meet up with Kirsten four days before the Miss America Pageant telecast next week for this year’s backstage secrets, preparations and even her predictions!

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