--- title: Miss Iceland Quits Pageant After Owner Says She's Too Fat description: Miss Iceland dropped out of a Las Vegas pageant when the owner told her she was too big to compete. canonical: https://time.com/4549074/miss-iceland-pageant-body-positive/ author: Megan Lasher article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-28T15:11:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:03:42.973Z og:title: Let’s Go Live In Iceland — and Follow Miss Iceland’s Lead og:description: A beauty queen from the country that’s the ‘best’ for women dropped out of a pageant when the owner asked her to lose weight og:url: https://time.com/4549074/miss-iceland-pageant-body-positive/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fb18052b7ae0d98/6988abf997cdff37146ae5cd/gender-role-iceland.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Miss Euro 2016 beauty pageant og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Let’s Go Live In Iceland — and Follow Miss Iceland’s Lead twitter:description: A beauty queen from the country that’s the ‘best’ for women dropped out of a pageant when the owner asked her to lose weight twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fb18052b7ae0d98/6988abf997cdff37146ae5cd/gender-role-iceland.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Let’s Go Live In Iceland — and Follow Miss Iceland’s Lead > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher Oct 28, 2016 3:11 PM UTC  Arna Yr Jonsdottir from Iceland, winner of the 'Miss EM 2016' (Miss Euro 2016) competition celebrates on stage in Rust, Germany, on June 3, 2016. Arna Yr Jonsdottir from Iceland, winner of the 'Miss EM 2016' (Miss Euro 2016) competition celebrates on stage in Rust, Germany, on June 3, 2016. Uwe Anspach—picture-alliance/dpa by [Megan Lasher](https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/) ## Megan Lasher Oct 28, 2016 3:11 PM UTC Iceland is officially[ the best country for working women](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/oct/24/iceland-best-place-to-be-women-equal-gender-maternity), according to [the World Economic Forum](http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2015/rankings/): The gender gap is the narrowest in the world, and women are given more equal opportunities from a young age. So maybe, when you’re from a place less rampant with misogyny, you are less likely to tolerate sexism. Consider Miss Iceland, Arna Ýr Jónsdóttir, who dropped out of a Las Vegas pageant when the owner told her she was too big to compete. “If the owner of the contest really wants me to lose weight and doesn’t like me the way I am, then he doesn’t deserve to have me in the Top 10,” Arna Ýr Jónsdóttir told [_Iceland Monitor_](http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2016/10/22/miss%5Ficeland%5F2015%5Fis%5Ftoo%5Ffat%5Fsays%5Fbeauty%5Fcontest/)after quitting the Miss Grand International pageant. “Yes, my shoulders are a bit broader than the other girls’ but that is because I was a member of the Icelandic national athletics team and I am proud of that… Personally, I think I’m fine as I am.” _Iceland Monitor_ reports that the pageant representatives told Jónsdóttir “stop eating breakfast, eat just salad for lunch and drink water every evening until the contest.” They also claim the owner told her she’s “too fat and needs to lose weight before the grand final on Tuesday.” [According to PEOPLE](http://people.com/bodies/miss-iceland-drops-out-of-beauty-contest-after-being-told-shes-too-fat-to-compete/), Jónsdóttir left a letter for the owner, saying, “If you are going to do an international beauty pageant, you at least have to be able to see international beauty.” 2016 has been [the year the pageant stars stopped putting up with sexist commentary](http://motto.time.com/4463063/miss-universe-vote-donald-trump/), and we are all for it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4549074/miss-iceland-pageant-body-positive/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4549074/miss-iceland-pageant-body-positive/"},"headline":"Let’s Go Live In Iceland — and Follow Miss Iceland’s Lead","datePublished":"2016-10-28T15:11:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:03:42.973Z","description":"A beauty queen from the country that’s the ‘best’ for women dropped out of a pageant when the owner asked her to lose weight","url":"https://time.com/4549074/miss-iceland-pageant-body-positive/","keywords":["motto","motto instagram"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fb18052b7ae0d98/6988abf997cdff37146ae5cd/gender-role-iceland.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan Lasher","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-lasher/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7fb18052b7ae0d98/6988abf997cdff37146ae5cd/gender-role-iceland.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Miss Euro 2016 beauty pageant","caption":"Miss Euro 2016 beauty pageant","creditText":"Uwe Anspach—picture-alliance/dpa","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4549074/miss-iceland-pageant-body-positive/","name":"Let’s Go Live In Iceland — and Follow Miss Iceland’s Lead"}}]}] ```