Making a difference, spreading kindness: Ms. Petite 2024 raises awareness of eating disorders – Salisbury Post

SALISBURY – Erica Leigh Averill of Salisbury wants to use the platform she has gained from her recent beauty pageants and her personal experiences to change both her community and the world.

Averill, who was named Ms. North Carolina Petite in 2023 and 2024, works to raise awareness about eating disorders and, as she said, “show women and girls that it’s not what you look like that matters, but what you do with your life.”

Averill said more people need to advocate for eating disorder treatment, noting that many young girls, ages 13 and 14 or younger, alter their photos online to make themselves look thinner or larger.

In addition, she added, you are looking at advertising that encourages people to lose a lot of weight, “and that can be a dangerous side effect,” she said.

Averill wants to help and encourage other people with this problem, as she herself suffered from an eating disorder at a young age and received help. She speaks in various eating disorder centers “with outpatient and inpatient women to show that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Her eating disorder began in high school, and at the time she didn’t think it was a big deal. But when she started college, things got more difficult, she said.

At first, she was super young, she said, and looked at magazines, looked at the models and wanted to look like them and wondered why she couldn’t be like them. Plus, she was on the school dance team and felt she had to look a certain way to fit into the uniform.

To avoid eating, she mentioned that she hung pictures of supermodels on her refrigerator so she wouldn’t have to open it.

“I tried to be something I wasn’t,” Averill said.

This continued throughout her school years and she lost so much weight that colleagues and other people feared she was ill and would ask her about it, noting that her ribs were visible through the clothes she was wearing.

She had enough of it and realized that her body was not functioning as it should and that her stomach was having problems.

Her doctors also said her body was failing and she wasn’t getting the nutrients she needed, so she needed to get help.

She thanks her family doctor at the time for truly saving her life and urging her to get help.

“She was so kind, so compassionate. She had a calming effect. I denied everything, but she knew what was going on and called her to get help,” she said.

Averill went to the Renfrew For Eating Disorders Center in Charlotte, where she stayed for about six months, “and it changed my life,” she said.

Dancing plays a big role in Averill’s life and is, according to her, her passion.

“For me, it’s a way to express myself without having to say anything,” she said.

She attended Savannah College of Art and Design, where she majored in photography and minored in ballet. When the pandemic hit and almost everything shut down, she was working as a choreographer in Charlotte, so she decided to return to Salisbury. She said she loves the small-town feel and “it feels like everywhere you go you either meet a new friend or already know them, and I love that.”

Averill had to undergo major back surgery due to her dance career and was recovering from the surgery when she entered her first beauty pageant, which she said was done on a whim.

While she had participated in beauty pageants in high school, which she said were pretty tough at the time, her first reaction when a friend mentioned beauty pageants was, “Me? Do I do beauty pageants?”

Her friend found the Petite USA system for women 5’6″ or smaller at that point, and Averill said the system was friendly and welcoming. “I was hooked,” she said.

She wanted to emphasize that “petite” does not mean “thin,” but “small,” and that word is misunderstood.

“I wouldn’t have the platform I have now if it were only for thin people, and that really bothers me,” she said.

So she joined them, “and everyone was so nice.”

The Ms. Petite beauty pageant did not take place in person, she said, but rather there were online video calls and many interviews. The process took weeks.

The interview was the most important part of evaluating the participants, as they spoke to five judges during it.

Averill said you have to sit up straight when you speak and find the right words, you have to know what you want to say and get your message across in three minutes, which she said is difficult, and get to the heart of what you are passionate about in that time.

She received both a call and an email in a timely manner informing her that she had won and was Ms. North Carolina Petite.

“I was jumping up and down and screaming. I was just so, so happy because I never thought I would be doing this at my age, but it was like I finally had a platform,” she said.

And through this platform, she tries to help others who are going through the same thing as her.

Averill said she was very nervous the first year she competed, but still made some very special friends.

Because she liked the system, she decided to compete a second time, but did not believe that she would be crowned the winner again.

“But I did it,” she said.

After her first win, she traveled to Columbia, South Carolina to receive her crown, and her second year she received her crown and sash in the mail.

“This is something I will cherish for the rest of my life,” she said.

She mentioned that the national beauty pageant was held in Chicago the first week of August and that although she didn’t win the crown, she did take home the Sisterhood Award and the experience of the event where she met some of her best friends who she talks to daily.

The Sisterhood Award, voted on by the judges and people behind the scenes of the pageant, is given to the woman who shows the most kindness, love, is helpful and truly represents the embodiment of sisterhood.

When asked what exactly she did to receive the award, she replied with a big smile that she was still trying to figure it out.

Regarding the pageant, Averill said she was one of those who had to help and that as a mother of a 13-year-old, she believes it is the mother in her.

During the national pageant, she could be seen helping some whose dresses were torn, sewing, and at other times unofficially planning fun events for everyone and making sure everyone felt welcome and included.

“It’s just a sisterhood,” she said. “I would never have found these girls if I hadn’t entered a beauty pageant.”

Throughout her participation in the beauty pageant, she was able to talk about her eating disorders during the interview and with the more than 50 participating women.

During the interview, Averill said, “I was able to really pour my heart out and just tell everyone” through her platform.

She talked about the friends she’s made “who are doing really great things,” including published authors, doctors and more.

“A beauty pageant is really more than people think, because it’s really women trying to change the world,” she said. “It’s more than glitter. It’s more than pretty dresses and hairstyles. It’s about really trying to make a change.”

Averill is determined to make a difference locally and elsewhere by speaking openly about her platform on social media.

Averill has also taken her golden retriever Finn, a certified therapy dog, to various hospitals and eating disorder facilities so people can love him and calm him down. And he loves it, too, she says.

She has also been invited to numerous speaking events and would like to give lectures in even more places.

Those interested in inviting her as a speaker can contact her either by email at [email protected] or call them at 704-698-8190.

She said she loves talking to people and being the person who can say, “It gets better because I’m living proof.”

Averill said she also likes to tell people that “recovery is not a straight line” as there will be good days and bad days.

She wants to show people that they are loved and that there are people who listen to those who are in need.

“That’s the person I want to be. I’m going to listen to you because I’ve been through this. I wish I could just shout out to the world that everything is going to be OK.”

She is still seeing the most amazing therapist and psychiatrist, she said, so her biggest goal right now is to find places where others can talk too, because she knows what it’s like to be alone, something she said she experienced at the beginning.

“I can’t thank them enough for the path they’ve shown me and the encouragement they’ve given me,” she said of the two, “because I don’t think I could ever be where I am now and encourage others.”

The best part of all of this, Averill said, is that her daughter Juliet is very proud of her. For an art project at school, she will take her mother’s photos from the recent pageant and draw them, she said.

“It’s a nice feeling to know that I’m doing great things for my daughter, to show her that she can do great things too,” she said. “And that’s really all I wanted: to show her that she can do great things too.”

Averill said she wants to be a good role model for her daughter and others and “pass the message on to other young girls, and not just young girls, but other people my age.”

When asked what she wanted to tell people, Averill said she had often been told that she couldn’t do certain things, perhaps to make others feel better.

“I realized it was time to take a stand and spread kindness. It’s incredible that it took a crown for me to realize that. I just want to carry on that legacy,” Averill said.”

She wants to spread that kindness and wants others to be kinder to each other and think about how they treat other people.

“More than anything, I want to change the world for young girls and women,” Averill said, “to show that they too have the power to change the world. That’s what I want to encourage in our community.”