Debunking Beauty Standards

Kelly Beth Cruse was living every girl’s fantasy! But the beauty wearing the crown of Miss Teen Illinois is quite different from your average beauty queen. Kelly Beth is a cancer survivor. “Well, I was born with cancer,” Kelly Beth said. “It was a neuroblastoma tumor and in the process of removing the cancer, it left me with some physical problems. I just felt different. I always asked my mom, ‘Why do I have to do this and they don’t have to do that?’” While growing up with the effects of cancer wasn’t easy for Kelly Beth, she had the support of a loving Christian family, “I became a Christian at six,” Kelly Beth said. “My parents were constantly praying for me and just really talking about God all the time.” As a teenager, Kelly Beth helped other girls deal with their own insecurities, and struggles. But she still struggled with insecurities of her own. “I grew up watching my older sister compete in pageants,” Kelly Beth said. “And I was always the one sitting in the audience thinking, ‘I’m never going to do one of these.’” But her sister convinced Kelly Beth to do one later on. “I competed for the Miss Illinois Teen USA pageant and I won it, surprisingly,” Kelly Beth said. “I had no idea that was going to happen. And then I just got immediately swept away preparing for Miss Teen USA.” Kelly Beth was well aware that beauty pageant contestants are under constant pressure to keep up a perfect appearance. Even with her struggles of self esteem, she was fully committed to doing whatever it took to win that crown - even if it meant endangering her life. “My thoughts were constantly obsessed with how I looked and what I could do to look better,” Kelly Beth said. “I just thought that it was normal to have calories on my mind and to be thinking, ‘hmm, I wonder how many fat grams are in that?’ That became a normal way of thinking for me and I didn’t even realize it at the time that I was so small. But, honestly, when I looked into the mirror, I just saw these big thighs and I just was not satisfied.” Kelly Beth was obsessed with being and looking perfect. She starved herself and in one week lost ten pounds from her already small frame. The night before the Miss Teen U.S.A. Pageant, Kelly looked in a mirror and was shocked to see a skeleton looking back. “I remember I was in the bathroom and my mom was getting ready to put sunless tanner on me,” Kelly Beth said. “I was turned around and my clothes were off and I was looking in the mirror and all of a sudden I see this bony back and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s disgusting.’” “And then it just hit me, I was like, ‘Kelly Beth, that’s you and that’s what you look like.’ So, for like five seconds, I saw the frail body and I saw the truth and it was after that very moment that I talked to my parents.” Kelly Beth told them, “I have a problem and I need help.” After witnessing Kelly Beth’s near fatal struggle with cancer, her family didn’t want to believe that she had developed an eating disorder. Even after asking for help, Kelly Beth continued to lose weight. It was apparent that she was in another death struggle. “More than anything, the eating disorder was the most difficult thing that we have ever been through,” Kelly Beth’s mother said. “It was harder than the cancer - faced with an eating disorder, you always think that it’s everybody else’s problem.” “We opted to go to a treatment center just to speak with some counselors and get some help,” Kelly Beth said. “Though I didn’t want to admit it, I needed it.” Kelly Beth says all the girls in the treatment center had eating disorders but other girls were struggling with drug addictions as well. “I just remember looking into their eyes and looking at their frail little bodies,” Kelly Beth said, “and then I’d hear them say these things like, ‘I feel so ugly and I feel so fat.’” But, Kelly saw them differently. “They’re so beautiful. I just wish they could see that,” Kelly Beth said. She remembers saying the same things about herself. Kelly Beth wanted to tell them that things were going to get better and there was hope for them. “But really, apart from Christ, there is no hope,” Kelly Beth said. “And so God just reminded me of the calling that He has for my life just to love on and encourage women.” With hard work and the support of her family, Kelly Beth overcame her eating disorder. She is telling her story internationally to youth groups and teen conferences, encouraging young women to find their security in God, and not in the world’s standards. “God has used this and is using this to grow me in ways that that I would never have imagined,” Kelly Beth said. “And I know He has more in store and I have no idea what He’s going to do and how he’s going to use it. And it sounds crazy to be able to be joyful about the pain, but I am because I don’t think I would have ever understood God’s grace and His love and His mercy and His patience if I hadn’t gone through these things.” “When I look into the mirror I see a totally different person than I did years ago,” Kelly Beth said. “And that is completely just from God’s grace that His truth has just transformed the way I see myself. God’s truth just totally blinds my eyes to what Satan longs for me just to believe. And His truth just reminds me that I am complete in Him and that I do not have to live up to the standards of this world.” “And so I think that that’s where my confidence lies,” Kelly Beth said. “Not so much in determining, ‘Oh, do I feel pretty today?’ but just knowing that God created me to be what I am and He’s pleased with me and that should be enough. It is enough.”