Miss Delaware Kayla Martell Says Bald is Beautiful

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - Bald can be beautiful. That's the message that a bald beauty queen hopes to share at the next Miss America pageant.

Miss Delaware Kayla Martell suffers from Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune disease that caused her to lose all her hair as a child. Martell, 21, was diagnosed with the disease in the fifth grade.

FOXNews.com's FOX 411 entertainment blog reported that Martell had competed in the Miss Delaware pageant four previous times to winning it in 2010. She had competed both with and without a wig, while this year she wore a blond wig.

She said she wants to raise awareness of the disease, which affects more than 4 million Americans.

"I hope to show people that beauty comes in all different kinds of packages," she said to FOX 411. "No beauty queen should fit into a box and look like a Barbie every time they wake up and none of us do, as you know. So I hope to show people that you are beautiful and whatever makes you different, you should embrace it."

According to AOL News , Martell started losing her hair when she was 10. She said that didn't stop her from wanting to be a beauty queen.

Martell said on her blog that she wants to become Miss America "because I know in my heart that every girl is a beauty queen, whether she has hair or not!"

Kid Glue wrote that Martell drew her recent inspiration from a five-year-old who suffered from the same condition. She appeared in an interview on the "CBS Morning Show" with the girl, Lilliana Hakim.