BEAUTY QUEEN'S PLIGHT SHOULD MAKE US THINK.

Byline: Wendy Dager

IF you hadn't read the headline, then you would think it was just some kid who'd allegedly used a stolen credit card. The same kid who'd allegedly been speeding down the 118 Freeway a couple of months ago, going - again allegedly - 100 mph.

This kid, though, wears a tiara.

Diana Sautman, the reigning Miss Moorpark, seems to be undergoing more than her share of controversy and embarrassment. She has pulled out of the upcoming Miss California pageant, quit her job at a bridal shop and relinquished her title.

If she did do something wrong, it sure seems like she's paying the price for her mistake. If she didn't commit a crime, then maybe it's like her attorney says: ``She's just a kid and is not a bad kid.''

Sautman was an active volunteer in the DARE program, took classes at Moorpark College - ostensibly to educate youth about AIDS - and was a participant in the MTV Rock the Vote effort. Definitely not a ``bad kid.''

Then there are those allegations. Speeding down the freeway is one thing. Most of us have. But few of us have stolen a credit card.

What is particularly disturbing is that the credit card in the Sautman case was allegedly used to purchase $850 worth of diet products. If this is true, then Sautman has fallen victim to one of the worst problems plaguing our society: diet fever.

It's bathing-suit season, folks. Shorts weather. Time to shave the legs, boost the bust line and hide the cellulite.

The pressure is on. But on a 17-year-old?

Sure, why not? The diet industry has so saturated the psyche of our nation that a recent survey has established that girls as young as 8 years old are ``on a diet.''

While there is no question the United States is tops as far as tipping the scales per capita worldwide, one must wonder - what price thinness?

Big dollars, apparently. From the ``natural weight metabolizers'' prominently displayed at gyms and health-food stores, to the new version of legal speed that has become the drug du jour, women especially are susceptible to the come-ons that entice them to use and misuse diet products.

Why? Because that 40 pounds or 20 or the last 10 from too many chocolate brownies or excess pregnancy weight gain have us all in a frenzy.

We strip ourselves bare before stepping on a scale (wait, those earrings are too heavy

), or cry on the shoulder of a doctor who is all too willing to prescribe something that may have horrendous side effects - from sleeplessness to heart failure.

Or worse, you're a young girl who is forcing herself to throw up or drink nothing but water and eat only a little lettuce with lemon juice - so you'll be nice and thin for your boyfriend or even your girlfriends or simply for a couple of trips to the beach this summer.

Or perhaps you don't have an eating disorder. Perhaps you're stealing a credit card so you can buy the stuff that will make you look good in the evening-gown portion of an upcoming beauty pageant.

What's the real price of thinness? Embarrassment, humiliation, putting one's health in danger - or a desperate move to get the title of reigning beauty queen? If the allegations in the Sautman case are true, the young woman deserves our concern, our pity and our willingness to work toward a society that doesn't judge us by the size of our thighs.

A lot of us have daughters. Because of television, magazines and the nature of what people perceive as beauty, we can't hide the evidence. But we can let our daughters know that an education, goals and being a decent human being are a lot more important than what's in vogue.