Venezeulans from across the country are undergoing drastic operations to get the desired look of a beauty queen - including having their large intestines removed so that food passes through their body without being digested.
Another method used by many is having plastic mesh sewn onto their tongues to stop them eating solids, and wearing plaster casts to crush their waists down to size.
Parents of the girls, who are often from poor backgrounds and desperate for a better life for their children, are also known to inject their kids with hormones to halt the onset of puberty, so they grow taller.
Girls are as young as 12 have their buttocks injected to make them rounder, despite the fact that many can die during the procedure.
Just one week before the final of Miss World, one of the ‘beauty academies’ that have sprung up in Venezuela opened its doors to the MailOnline, instructing them on how to be the perfect beauty pageant contestant.
‘To be a beauty queen the breasts can’t be too large to too flat. Often the surgery is just to change slightly the shape or the size,’ said Mr Velasquez from the Belankazar academy in Caracas.
He adds: ‘I don’t believe Venezuela has the world’s most beautiful women, but we know how to produce beautiful, perfect women. That’s why we excel in all the international beauty competitions.’
According to the report, most beauty academies expect their girls to have their imperfections ‘ironed out’ through surgery - be that a nose job, boob job, butt job or liposuction.