Global beauty pageants such as Miss Universe and Miss International are undergoing their most significant transformation in decades, as organizers expand eligibility rules, overhaul scoring systems, and adopt stronger inclusivity and health policies.
In the past three years, major pageants have removed age limits, allowed married women and mothers to compete, and shifted judging criteria toward advocacy, wellness, and social impact—changes confirmed by official statements from the Miss Universe Organization and Miss International.
These reforms come amid declining traditional television viewership but surging digital engagement. Miss Universe alone now draws more than 24 million followers across social platforms. Meanwhile, public-health research continues to document rising concerns about body-image pressures during peak pageant season.
A 2023 study by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Vanderbilt University found that adolescent girls in states whose contestants won national pageants were significantly more likely to attempt weight loss and misperceive themselves as overweight.
Industry observers note that these tensions—between expanding inclusivity and lingering beauty pressures—are redefining pageantry’s cultural relevance in 2025.
The Modern Pageant: An Industry Under Pressure to Evolve
For much of the 20th century, global pageants centered their scoring on narrow physical ideals: height, weight, facial symmetry, and stage presence. However, shifting cultural expectations, sharper public scrutiny, and the rise of advocacy-driven formats have forced organizations to rethink what a “queen” represents.
The Miss Universe Organization has led many of the most sweeping reforms.
In 2023, it opened the competition to married and divorced women as well as mothers, abandoning rules rooted in 1950s pageant codes. By 2024, MUO removed its upper age limit entirely, previously set at 28.
Miss International, traditionally more conservative, has also begun adjusting scoring to emphasize cultural diplomacy, goodwill, and social responsibility.
These updates reflect a wider generational demand—particularly from Gen Z—for competitions that reward intelligence, substance, and authenticity over conventional beauty ideals.
READ HOW BEAUTY STANDARDS ARE CHANGING
Pageants Move from Primetime TV to Digital Dominance
Although pageants appear to be losing traction on traditional broadcast television, they are not disappearing—they are migrating online.
According to Nielsen and other media analytics, viewership for Miss Universe and Miss World has declined over the last decade.
However, digital and short-form content engagement has surged, with Miss Universe recording hundreds of millions of views per cycle on TikTok alone—far exceeding its live TV audience.
This shift is powered by behind-the-scenes clips, “get-ready-with-me” videos, national costume reveals, viral Q&A snippets, and fan-edited content. Pageants have become algorithm-driven cultural spectacles, reaching younger global audiences who consume fashion, beauty, and personality-driven content through social media rather than weekend broadcasts.
As one media analyst put it, “This is no longer a TV event—it’s a digital audience event.”
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How Barangay Pageants Shape Everyday Beauty Ideals
In many Philippine barangays, the loudest cheers during fiesta season erupt not for bands or fireworks, but for the “beaucon”—a grassroots beauty pageant crowning a Miss Barangay, Mutya ng Pista, or Festival Queen.
Scholars observe that beauty contests occur at nearly every level of Filipino society, from neighborhood stages to national arenas.
According to cultural historians, fiesta queens often symbolize grace, religious devotion, and community pride. Yet researchers argue that even these familiar community competitions subtly shape what audiences consider “beautiful.”
Sociologist Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Doris Stevens Professor at Princeton University, describes beauty pageants as “sites of cultural production,” where communities rehearse idealized notions of femininity, status, and modernity.
A recent Philippine study on young Filipina beauty standards found that many still equate attractiveness with fairer skin, sharper features, and a slim, often “foreign-looking” frame—reflecting the influence of Western and East Asian media, and by extension, the pageant imagery widely consumed across the country.
Because barangay audiences often cheer most loudly for contestants who fit these traits, these contests can reinforce narrow beauty ideals long before viewers even watch Miss Universe.
A 2021 mixed-methods study, “Beyond Crowns, Sashes, and Heels,” reported that positive audience feedback and high-placements in local pageants were linked with higher self-esteem and achievement motivation among candidates. However, contestants who did not fit Western-leaning beauty ideals struggled with insecurity and lower self-evaluation.
Another study documented how children and teenagers watching barangay pageants absorbed these cues, associating beauty with worth, confidence, and social mobility.
Still, some barangays are moving toward more diverse, advocacy-focused formats that highlight cultural identity, talent, or community issues rather than swimwear segments. These shifts slowly broaden local definitions of what it means to be beautiful, confident, and worthy.
Beauty Standards Under the Microscope: Health Impacts and Body Pressures
Despite their evolution, pageants continue to influence beauty standards—and with that influence come potential health risks.
According to the UMass Amherst–Vanderbilt study, teen girls in states whose contestants won major pageants were 5% more likely to attempt weight loss and 4% more likely to misperceive themselves as overweight.
In the Philippines, a February 2025 nationwide survey by Arkipelago Analytics found that 52% of Filipinos aged 18–24 reported negative effects on their well-being due to body image—six percentage points higher than the global average.
READ THIS SURVEY: Majority of Filipinos report negative body image impacting their wellbeing
On the structural side, a 1999 survey of 131 American pageant contestants revealed that 26% believed they had an eating disorder, nearly half wanted to be thinner, and 57% were actively trying to lose weight.
Healthcare professionals emphasize that even with growing inclusivity, the intense visibility and competitive nature of pageants can fuel unhealthy beauty pressures among viewers and contestants alike.
The Rise of Inclusivity: Representation as a New Standard
The most visible transformation in pageantry is the growing diversity of contestants.
Policy changes—such as removing age limits, allowing mothers and married women to compete, and embracing transgender participation—have broadened representation.
Contestants with darker skin tones, fuller bodies, and older ages are increasingly visible in competitions once dominated by Eurocentric, slender ideals.
Experts say that this shift has meaningful effects on body positivity, self-esteem, and awareness of long-standing biases, including colorism, ageism, and fatphobia. Contestants who openly discuss conditions like PCOS, vitiligo, alopecia, or postpartum changes help challenge ingrained beauty hierarchies.
The Beauty Economy: Aesthetic Medicine and Wellness Trends
Pageants continue to drive the global beauty economy, now valued at around USD $600 billion.
From October to December, aesthetic clinics in Southeast Asia—including the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam—report increases of 20–30% in consultations, coinciding with pageant season.
These trends are amplified by social-media-driven “glow-up” narratives, influencer endorsements, and “pageant-queen routines” in makeup, skincare and fitness.
In effect, modern pageants now function not only as competitions but also as marketing engines for the beauty, wellness, and aesthetic industries.
Mental Health and Governance: A System Under Scrutiny
The mental-health ramifications of pageant participation have gained attention in recent years.
Psychologists argue that the pageant system, spanning local to global levels, lacks standardized regulation, leading to uneven participant protections.
Advocates have called for reforms such as on-site mental-health officers, nutrition oversight, anti-bullying guidelines, limits on extreme dieting, and mandatory psychological support—bringing pageant governance more in line with standards used in sports and the entertainment industry.
The Future: Will Pageants Continue to Matter?
Beauty pageants are not disappearing—they are evolving.
Their global reach remains significant, their online influence enduring, and their cultural relevance—especially in countries like the Philippines—still deeply embedded.
But the nature of that relevance is changing. Once centered solely on physical beauty, pageants are now compelled to engage with public-health research, body-image science, mental-health frameworks, global inclusivity movements, media-literacy debates, and economic pressures.
Experts do not foresee pageants fading. Instead, they anticipate a future in which pageants increasingly serve as health advocacy platforms, cross-cultural diplomacy arenas, engines of beauty-wellness trends, and digital storytelling ecosystems.
The key question is whether these institutions can evolve quickly and ethically enough to reflect changing values.
Photo by Amy-Leigh Barnard
