Venezuelan beauty queen reveals her shocking diet aid - tongue mesh

An unbelievable clip from a new BBC documentary about the beauty and plastic surgery industry in South America has shocked viewers, as we see a Venezuelan beauty queen reveal the extreme lengths she's gone to to keep slim.

Wi May Nava runs through a list of her plastic surgery, finishing by sticking out her tongue to reveal she's had mesh sewn into it to make it too painful for her to eat solids.

The documentary, Secrets of South America: Extreme Beauty Queens, sees presenter Billie JD Porter meet women who have saved and spent thousands of their families' dollars on plastic surgery to give them the best chance of winnning the Miss Venezuela competition (After the doc was filmed, Nava became the the 2013 First Runner Up).

Nava explains that her hope is that she can get noticed and move her family out of the slums in Caracas (the Venezuelan capital) and for that reason, she has aready had a boob and nose job, paid for by their savings. She also held a raffle to get her teeth 'fixed', beacuse they family ran out of money.

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She explains that the tongue mesh makes her "lose weight faster. You eat the same [things] but liquefied."

Her advice comes from Osmel Sousa, president of the Miss Venezuela competition. He also runs a Next-Top-Model-style TV competition to find contestants for the event.

He clearly has no sympathy for any human traits, such as eating, adding: "If a girl needs a nose job, you get her one. It's an industry so we strive for perfection. We can't settle for mediocrity."

Extreme Beauty Queens repeats on BBC3 at 8pm tonight (Monday) and is available on iPlayer.