WARREN (WWJ) — Miss Voluptuous America winner Amanda Sweet knows more than most that the journey to healthy self-esteem can be tough, but since gaining her first pageant title in April, she's now on a journey to help others.
"It feels like everything that I've been working for, the community that I've been supporting and elevating for so long, they were waiting," the 32-year-old from Warren, Michigan said. "It felt like they were waiting and now they're just like, 'Let's go. Okay, time to run with it!'"
Sweet believes the outpouring of positive community response in the months since the April 2022 pageant means the world is ready to have more people of different body types, skin tones and gender identities step out into the limelight.
"People are craving real people as people to look towards and people to aspire to be," Sweet, who is also of Filipino and Jewish decent, explained. "... this is who we are, this is what we look like and we want that visual representation in our communities and on our media."
Sweet told said she never thought she would win the first ever Miss Voluptuous America title — let alone enter a pageant — when she opened her internet browser and began a Google search in February of 2022.
While scrolling through plus-sized opportunities, she stumbled across a promo for the pageant and immediately felt compelled to apply.
Sweet said the pageant's goal of empowering, elevating and celebrating all women resonated with her.
"The mission made sense immediately," Sweet said. "The Miss Voluptuous pageant system is here to create space and give opportunity to plus sized bodied women — and plus sized bodied people who identify as women — the space to not only shine, but thrive and create a sisterhood."
Sweet said she almost missed the deadline to apply and was shocked when she was invited to compete in Nashville.
"I have never been a pageant person, pageant queen," Sweet said. Instead, she helped out her younger sister, Rachel, with her hair and make up when she competed in pageants.
"I never really thought it's something for me, just because I've always been a plus-size bodied person, a little bit alternative," Sweet explained. "It's not really for me."
Although Sweet has been working in nonprofit and creative circles for over ten years, everything changed after she took an unexpected leap and went out of her comfort zone — now, with the help of the spotlight and the impact of the experience, she was to share her body positive message, advice and acceptance for all.
Sweet features her philanthropic "Party With Purpose" platform, which focuses on community outreach, involvement and party planning as her way of getting more people to meet and involved with each other. She is also the founder of The ReVamp, a community clothing swap, where people can bring old clothes and "swap" them for new ones, with the leftover clothes being donated to charity
Sweet said creating spaces where people of all different backgrounds can come together and be themselves, do what they love and build confidence is her ultimate goal and she doesn't see herself stopping anytime soon.
"What's next for me is to continue being loud, being big, being fabulous, hosting more events," she said.
Sweet has also taken her message to the stage, having traveled as recently to the westside to speak at the Grand Rapids Asian Pacific Islander Festival. She has been the focus of numerous interviews and will be in the United Kingdom to MC another pageant.
She said her dream of motivating, speaking, coaching, inspiring others is coming true and even her relationship with herself has blossomed-- all thanks to Miss Voluptuous.
"Oh, my God, my whole life changed," she said after she won her pageant title. "Everything has changed. Everything has changed in a beautiful, amazing way."
And when it comes to haters, Sweet advised others to "just do more."
"Make more noise, be louder, host more events, do more meetups, do more things," she said. "Bring more awareness and light to people like you and create spaces for people like you and the critic can say whatever they want, but they can't stop us from being and stop us from doing and achieving."
"Just go for it. Just do it anyway, do it. If you're afraid, do it. Regardless of what people might say, what your internal critic might say, if it feels right and it feels good and it excites you, go for it," Sweet advised. "The worst thing that could happen is that you learn something about yourself, the worst thing that can happen is you try something different. The worst thing that could happen is you meet somebody new, you learn a lesson."
Sweet said there's no such thing as failure and hopes others come to realize that with every risk that is taken, it will change you in some way.
"It's just a matter of, just turning the corner and looking around and seeing what else is out there and expanding your perspective," she said. "There's a lot of communities and organizations that are rallying behind minority groups and doing amazing work and doing super awesome and super fun things like this."
"And it just takes a little bit of a Google search," she laughed.
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