The Miss Universe Ireland is working to aid children’s mental health

The empathetic beauty, who was crowned Miss Universe Ireland in December 2020 having previously entered the competition in 2019 only to reach the top ten and lose out to a NASA datanaut named Fionnghuala O’Reilly, took the title during a virtual ceremony and explains that she sees much more opportunity in the world’s biggest and perhaps most illustrious beauty pageant than wowing during the bikini round or looking drop dead gorgeous in a figure-hugging frock.

“I would argue there is much more to pageantry than the display of beauty. I think people who are sceptical of pageantry should come to us who participate and ask the questions about why we get involved and what we get out of it. For me it is a very empowering process.”

But isn’t Nadia, as a pin-thin, stunningly beautiful model simply perpetuating the kind of female objectification that keeps women entrapped by the male gaze by participating in Miss Universe? Let’s face it, you have to be gorgeous, and of a certain shape and size to bypass round after round in skimpy outfits or swimwear, and would the judges of such pageants even remotely listen to Nadia if she were not so lavishly blessed with beauty?

The reality is that women in particular continue to be massively judged on their appearance: it would be a complete obfuscation of reality to claim otherwise, and images of ‘thinspiration’ and people looking hot in bikinis and togs proliferate most insidiously on platforms like Twitter and Instagram where the rise of the ‘influencer’ - generally a woman of bodily proportions to rival Kate Moss, the symmetrical face with pretty eyes and high cheekbones we have come to love as the hallmark of aesthetic glory, or men with ripped torsos like Brad Pitt circa Fight Club - are repeatedly offered to us as the benchmark of beauty; and all of us exposed to tabloid and social media culture know it. 

But Nadia, who began modelling at 16 and entered her first pageant at 21, insists: “Beauty is not what society dictates. It is individual.”

She finds pageantry interesting because of the “people you meet and the friendships you develop with the other girls. For me it really is a personal development hobby really and pageantry helped to build my confidence. Before I had body image anxieties, but this is empowering. It is hard to love yourself. It is easy to listen to the trolls online or to look at other people and feel inadequate. Being on stage during a pageant to me is just so much fun. It’s not just a question of getting your hair and make-up done and standing on a stage wearing a dress. What you say and what you are passionate about matters too. And I am proud to be an advocate for mental health and especially to encourage young people to speak out about whatever they are experiencing.”

Indeed the most interesting and important aspect of Nadia’s wearing the Miss Universe Ireland crown is that she intends to use it as an ambassadorial role to speak out about the challenges of mental health, and particularly its deleterious effects on children and young people in a world where social media, fake news and trolling have become burgeoning sources of anxiety and disorder, especially during lockdown when more and more of us are resorting to virtual platforms for communication.

In her day job as Youth Development Officer for mental health charity Hope 4 Life, based in Belfast, she helps provide workshops in primary and secondary schools and among community and youth groups, addressing the issues that plague young people today, teaching them the tools to maintain good mental health.

“Before Covid we would have aimed to be in schools three out of five days a week, primary and post-primary, all across the province.

“We used a comic book that we had developed for children with characters called Uber Heroes. Typically super heroes are positive influences who can seize the day and triumph over adversity. They are good influences who can help fix things. 
“We tell the children that if they are experiencing anxiety or worry then that is an external force and they can follow the example of the comic book characters we have constructed in order to overcome those problematic emotions.

“These heroes are all different; we have Veritas, Latin for truth - she helps people cut through self-doubt, see the truth and gain perspective on a situation. Nadase (from the Taiwanese for ‘hope’) is another popular character; then we have Invictus, which means ‘overcomer’ - all about helping young people overcome challenges and developing resilience; and Domine, teacher or master, who stands for intelligence - not so much being booksmart but more emotional intelligence and using that to make good decisions for yourself.

“At the moment, due to lockdown, we have all our educational comics online for children and we have support resources for parents and children on our website. Then we have a helpline for young people which is available 24/7.”

Nadia was drawn to study psychology because she was curious about understanding the ‘why’ behind emotions and behaviours. But it wasn’t until she went to university and faced her own mental health challenges that she realised she had a passion for helping others, facing similar issues.

“For me, the main reason I didn’t go looking for help when I was experiencing anxiety and depression was that I couldn’t pin it to any one event or situation, it was a build up of minor things and that left me feeling I had no right to seek help because there were people out there with much bigger problems who needed therapy more urgently than I did. But looking back, I think starting university is difficult for lots of teenagers. You can become depressed and anxious without experiencing major trauma. People experience different stressors differently. If you are struggling for any reason and need help you should not hesitate to get it. 

“At university I was very down, more paranoid, more anxious and I was losing weight. I wasn’t myself and my family took me home.

“I had high levels of anxiety about literally everything. I struggled so much with depression.

“I felt numb and that I was just being held together by duct tape. It was exhausting. The way I thought of myself, how negative my self-image and my body image was - it was bad.”

So she saw her GP, was given medication and then put on a 13-week waiting list for talking therapy. Sayers is adamant that Northern Ireland is suffering from underfunding which limits the provision of therapeutic talking services available through an already overstretched NHS, especially amid the ongoing challenges presented by Covid.

“These areas need to be better funded. When you feel you can’t get out of bed in the morning and you are told you have to wait 13 weeks to see anybody that is certainly concerning. That needs to change.”

Eventually Nadia was able to see a clinical psychologist who she worked with for years. Then, having restabilised and come off medication, she decided she wanted to give something back, and began volunteering for a suicide prevention charity before taking up her current role with Hope 4 Life. 

She understands that for many young people the lookist values that social media can institute, where you have to appear a certain way to be considered desirable and valid, is a major issue.

“It might sound strange that I’m competing in Miss Universe yet have my own hang ups, but that is the truth. And more and more on social media, young people are feeling pressured and depressed with the pressure of having to look or be a certain way. You feel if you don’t fit in with that aesthetic then you don’t count.

“I enjoy social media but I think it needs to be used carefully. And that again is where emotional intelligence and self-awareness really comes into play.

“But platforms like Instagram can be dangerous and damaging to self-esteem if you don’t know how to navigate it in order to protect yourself.

“You have this hand-held device that has a constant stream of other people’s opinions, thoughts and words and constantly negative rolling news. The brain often isn’t getting any respite from this 24/7 overload of information and I think young people are especially vulnerable and definitely need to put limits on their use of social media. We really need to take control of what we are consuming intellectually.”

The Tyrone psychology graduate began modelling at 16, doing her first pageant at 21, saying she found the process attractive because of the “people you meet and the friendships you develop with the other girls “For me it really is a personal development hobby really and pageantry helped to build my confidence.”

Nadia, who does not yet know when the Miss Universe contest will take place thanks to Covid, continues: “Before I had body image anxieties, but this is empowering. It is hard to love yourself. It is easy to listen to the trolls online or to look at other people and feel inadequate. Being on stage during a pageant to me is just so much fun. It’s not just a question of getting your hair and make-up done and standing on a stage wearing a dress. What you say and what you are passionate about matters too.

“And I am proud to be an advocate for mental health and especially to encourage young people to speak out about whatever they are experiencing.”