"If they walked in off the street I would be worried," said Susan Krantz, a nutritionist at the Bacharach Institute for Rehabilitation Center's Eating Disorders Clinic in Pomona.

Thirty nine of the pageant's 51 candidates supplied The Press with their weight and height, which were then run through a series of calculations to come up with something called a Body Mass Index - a standard method for determining whether a person's weight constitutes a health risk. The BMI is most often used to assess people who are overweight, but it's also a tool for screening for eating disorders. It is considered an incomplete picture of a person's health, but a legitimate starting point.

A Body Mass Index disaster

The healthy range for a Body Mass Index is 19 to 25. Anything over 25 may signal that a person is overweight. A BMI of less than 19 is an indication that something may be wrong, although not necessarily. Some people fall off the scale because they're small-boned, or because they're in very good shape - marathon runners, for example. Others are thin because of genetics. But two nutritionists contacted by The Press expressed concern that so many Miss America candidates fell below the weight considered healthy for their height.

"The majority of the time when the BMI is that low, that means that something's wrong," said Althea Zanecosky, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "It would set off an alarm in my brain. If somebody had a BMI that low, I would want to find out why. I think that's scary."

How common are Body Mass Indexes well below 19? Not very, said Zanecosky. "And the ones who are, I'd look twice and say, 'oh oh, eating disorders.'"

There are exceptions, she said, but she wouldn't expect to see 17 such exceptions out of a group of 39. "I find it hard to believe that all the Miss America (contestants) are exceptions to the rule," she said. "Maybe one, maybe two, but not all."

It's not genetics

Zanecosky and Krantz said that even if fitness and genetics did explain all the contestants' weights, they're still concerned that the pageant is sending the wrong message to America's young girls - that petite and thin equals success. Because of genetics, some girls and women cannot be thin or petite, they said, without extraordinary and sometimes unhealthy measures.

The pageant has long stressed that it is concerned with fitness - that's its explanation for keeping the swimsuit portion - but the dietitians said the emphasis appears to be more on thin.

"I think it's very dangerous," said Krantz. "Very dangerous. The kids who are watching, they aren't looking at the talent. What they're looking at is how thin these women are."

"I'm concerned about the image they are giving," said Zanecosky. "It doesn't seem very healthy." If the 17 low-weight candidates visited her office, Krantz said they would quickly be questioned about their attitudes toward food and their diets. Too often, she said, she sees young beautiful girls with a very poor self image "who are very afraid of being fat." That sometimes leads to improper eating, which can lead to problems like bulemia and other eating disorders.

Of the 39 contestants who volunteered their weight, Miss Michigan Audrie Chernauckas, 23, came in with the lowest Body Mass Index. At 5-foot-7-inches and 110 pounds, her index was 17.6. When Chernauckas' BMI was calculated on the Mayo Clinic's Web site, a warning came up saying: "This BMI falls below the range for most people. You may want to recheck your entries or ... see your physician." Chernauckas, a dancer, said she is a picky eater but is healthy.

"I don't even think about my weight," she said. "I'm fortunate, I guess. I don't think I'm too thin. I'm pretty happy with myself. I'm not a freak about it. I definitely eat. All my friends and relatives will tell you that."

"I promise you," said Chernauckas. "I'm healthy." Miss Hawaii Candes Meijide Gentry, 22 _ who is 5-foot-2-inches and 95 pounds, has a Body Mass Index only slightly higher: 17.7.

A biased scale?

"I think the scale may be a little biased," said Gentry, so that it would make small-framed women appear to be too light. "It is based on generalizations. I am definitely within the range of being normal and healthy." On Wednesday, she said that for breakfast she had a bagel with creme cheese and jelly, and cereal. Lunch was a tuna sandwich. Dinner is often soup and salad or steak, she said. She said she also eats energy bars and fruit during day and snacks on low-fat ice cream or frozen yogurt "almost every single night."

"I guess I'm just lucky," she said. "I get to eat all kinds of junk food." Gentry said she is a triathlete. She added that in high school, "A lot of my girlfriends became anorexic, or compulsive at working out," so she knows the dangers and the symptoms.

"You really can tell from the outside," she said. "They really look emaciated."

At the pageant, she said, "The women I've seen seem to be comfortable with who they are and how they look." Still, the women know that they're going to be walking around on a stage in a swimsuit with millions of people watching, and some admitted that means there is a lot of pressure to slim down.

Miss New Jersey Victoria Paige won her local pageant at 165 pounds, which she said proves it's not just a beauty pageant. But then she lost 30 pounds, eventually shrinking from a size12 to a size 6. She said it took six days a week in the gym, "But it was all done healthy. I gave up the French fries, which are my downfall."

"With the motivation of 20 million people watching you, you can work hard," she said. "I'd just sit in the gym and people would be going, 'Miss America, Miss America.' "

As for the other contestants, "We could out-eat a football team," said Paige. "We're all healthy eaters."

"Every girl I know is going up there for dessert, and sometimes seconds," said Miss Nebraska Becky Smith, whose platform is wellness advocacy for youth. "I love brownies and cookies."

At 5-feet 4-inches and 105, Smith's Body Mass Index came in at 18. "You have to understand, I'm a dancer," she said.

Even at 105 pounds, she said she has "a layer of cellulite" on her legs. "And that's OK. I feel good and I feel like I look good."

"I eat like a normal person," Smith said. "I really haven't seen a single person (at the pageant) that I would be concerned about. And as a dancer, I've seen it. (eating disorders)."

"I think they're beginning to move away from the thin, wan-looking model types," both in the pageant world and in life, she said.

A taboo subject

Pageant officials have very publicly mentioned how well the contestants eat. Yet the subject is a touchy one for some pageant veterans. "It breaks my heart, what happens to some of these girls," said a state pageant representative who walked away from a reporter when he asked for more details.

Not everybody believes the Body Mass Index is a useful scale. Mike Fiferick, an Atlanta, Ga. based personal trainer whose clients include actresses and pageant contestants, said it is an antiquated way of gauging somebody's health risk, "And not a very good one."

"It might have been of interest 30 years ago, but it's outdated," he said. "The BMI is really not very significant. It tells you more about the pageant (that it attracts petite women) than about the health or the eating habits of the contestants."

"Femininity and big muscles don't go together," Fiferick said. "The Miss America pageant is not a body building contest."

Zanecosky defended the use of the Body Mass Index as a preliminary tool, and she questioned the pageant's assertions that the emphasis is fitness rather than thin beauty.

"The World Cup soccer women are really fit," she said. "Even those women do not have BMIs like Miss America. And these (soccer) women, from a dietitian's point of view, are very healthy."

-- 1999, The Press of Atlantic City.