Child Beauty Pageants Essay

While people may believe that children do not perceive pageants as superficial, the ideas of what society expects is instilled into their minds. They are taught to go out on a stage and aggressively compete for the spot of Most Beautiful. Most competitors are young girls with a fake tan, wearing fake teeth, eyelashes, and hair in order to gain notoriety and success. It teaches them the wrong values.

Each year, around three million children, ages 6 to 16, will compete in a beauty pageant. When a child enters to compete in a beauty pageant, it not only damages the child now, but as well as later in life. Also, the standards that these children are held to while competing in a beauty pageant is affecting their development.

Child beauty pageants started in the 1960’s, and have been increasingly more popular in the past decade. Currently, there are over two hundred-fifty thousand children under the age of fourteen competing in beauty pageants (Triggs et al 2012). There are no age limits in place; age groups range from zero months to eight months all the way up until eighteen years of age. Parents who enter their children in pageants can damage their children for the rest of their lives. However, pageants do help the beauty industry, and essentially create jobs.

“It doesn’t matter if you can breathe. All that matters is if you look good”. Just Googling the search term “beauty pageants coming up,” will result in 2,710,000 results appearing in 1.18 seconds. Children are the fastest-growing segment of the beauty pageant market, with annual children's competitions attracting an estimated 3 million children, mostly girls, ages six months to 16 years, who compete for crowns and cash. Infants, carried onto the stage by their mothers, are commonplace. April Brilliant, reigning Mrs. Maryland and the director of Maryland-based Mystic Pageants, says pageants give little girls a chance to "play Cinderella." However, playing ‘Cinderella’ can cause children to develop insecurities or self-hatred if they don't

Zinzi Williams explains the downsides of pageantry in “Do Pageant Children Behave Differently than Other Kids?” The central claim is that there are many psychological differences between children who compete in the world of pageantry and children who don’t. Williams states the minor claims that children who compete in beauty pageants put beauty ahead of schoolwork and play time. Her other minor claim is that beauty contests affect the way the children who compete view their bodies and there overall appearance. She states that statistic that if there are 20 girls competing in the pageant, that each contestant only has a 5% chance of winning, which is very slim! Williams explains that in her research she found that on WebMD, a medical website,

In the world of beauty pageants, many people find themselves entrapped in the expensiveness of the gown, the extravagance of the hairstyle, and how attractive the woman sporting all of this truly is. However, when entered into this arena at a young age, one where you are not fully developed and deep in adolescence, this presents a problem not all are aware of. Many people don’t understand the emotional stress that almost everyone that participates in pageants goes through. Women face various issues after everything has been said and done. A number of pageant contestants start at a relatively young age, some as young as infants, and grow up in this seemingly glamorous world of pageantry, from which they learn to present themselves in a

Beauty Pageants over sexualizes little girls at a young age. As it seen in “Toddlers and Tiaras” a show by TLC show, little girls are being sexualized at a young age, by introducing them to hair extensions, make up, flippers (fake teeth), sexualized dresses. According to Paul Peterson, president and founder of A Minor Consideration, beauty pageants are “feeding the sex industry (Agadoni).” Girls are not physically ready to wear make up or hair extensions, and all of that just hides the natural beauty of a child making them more self conscious about themselves at such a young age. Little girls are going to think of themselves as not beautiful because they hide their real selves behind a ton of make up.

Starting at only two years of age, contestants of these child beauty pageants are being over sexualized. They are oftentimes made to wear tight and revealing dresses, to flaunt something they have not yet developed. Spray tans, hair extensions, fake nails and eyelashes, “sexy” outfits and bathing suits. These girls are even sometimes made to wear fake teeth, because what used to be “innocent and adorable” about the gaps in a child’s teeth from losing them, is no longer pretty enough in the eyes of the judge. In July 2012, Knox College in Galesburg, III. conducted an experiment on girls ages 6 to 9. In the experiment they showed the girls two different dolls, one was dressed in tight and revealing clothing while the other was dressed in a modest but popular looking outfit. The researchers asked the girls which

(Andrea Canning & Jennifer Pierera) Let us not forget the fake eyelashes, nails, makeup, teeth whitening and hair extensions; put it all together and you have got a beauty queen. Does being beautiful mean you have to be sexy and promiscuous? The talent portion of the pageant consists of the children dancing sexually, winking, posing and blowing kisses to the judges. This kind of activity pressures little girls to be flirtatious and engage in sexual actives at a young age. Today’s pageants force children to do everything an adult would do and wear, ultimately leading them to believe they are mature enough to behave and engage in the same activities as adults do.

Beauty pageants became popular in The United States around the 1920’s. They originated to serve as a marketing tool. Women were formally displayed like trophies because of their sexual appeal however; children were taken a step further. In “Child Beauty Pageants”, Hilary Levey Friedman points out, “Instead of a typical runway walk, child pageant modeling is a set routine, choreographed with facial expressions and spins. At many pageants a “grand supreme” title is decided based on the highest score for the entire event or for an age group, such as zero to six.” The popularity only increased over the years as it spread across the nation. Media jumped over the chance to endorse them and the fad only spiked.

Beauty pageants teach young children superficial and corrupt values such as the ‘importance’ of money, beauty and winning among others. Their parents are pouring their money into buying dresses and costumes for their underage children, just

Beauty Pageants General Purpose: To argue Specific Purpose: To argue that beauty pageants are exploitive Thesis Statement: Beauty pageants have a bad effect on society because: 1) it spotlights only one kind of beauty, 2) it lower’s women’s self-worth and self-esteem; and 3) it affects a child’s development Introduction I. [Attention Step] When meeting someone for the first time it’s usually not the person in the inside that you notice first, but rather their physical features. II. [Topic Justification] In a new survey from cbslocal.com it is said that 37% of people notice your smile first, while 33% notice your eyes, 15% judge your weight, 9% your hair, and 2% judge your nose, but what if that was all you were being judged for, was how you

This occurs through girls wearing adult clothings in diminutive sizes, the use of inessential makeup products, and the obedience to follow beauty rituals under adult instruction. Many girls under the age of ten who attend the beauty pageants are having their unblemished face covered with makeup and their hair fixed in adult fashion (Reed). Unfortunately, there are about 250,000 contestants who participate in beauty pageants and 100,000 of them are under the age of 12. Beauty pageants are completely inappropriate for young children’s mental health. As Melinda Tankard Reist writes, “Little girls preen, strut, pout and beckon to the judges, ‘ Come here baby’.

Self-tanning, acrylic nails, makeup, oh goodness! Think Miss America but with children instead of women. View all the different steps for altering a little girl’s appearance to impress the sight of others. A child's beauty pageant is a competition for contestants sixteen and under. The youngest age to enter a pageant is eight months old. It all started in the year of 1854 by entrepreneur Phineas Taylor Barnum. The competition consists of talent, interview, casual swimwear, and evening wear. Beauty pageants vary in price. The participant not only has to pay for the event itself, she has to pay for items that will make her look “beautiful.” Contestants are required to have a coach to show them how to walk and what to say to make the judges like them. As seen on the television show, Toddlers and Tiaras, the coaches in charge have prior experience in pageants. It takes plenty of time and effort to perfect the overall look. The two types of beauty pageants are natural and glitz. Natural beauty pageants are more “come as you are.” Meaning there is not a single false part on the child. This type of pageant allows for the contestant to be who they are without having to alter their appearance. Glitz, on the other hand, it is a must to have hair parts, false eyelashes, flippers; known as fake teeth. Henry Giroux states “Pageants are a lucrative business. Promoters market pleasure and rake in big dividends, with some making as much as $100,000 on each event” (Stealing Innocence 11).

The TLC Show, “Toddlers and Tiaras,” is not an accurate representation of all that goes into preparing children for pageants. The show dramatizes the mostly the negative side of childhood beauty pageants. It depicts competitors that want to win strictly based on appearance. Despite the bad reputation that beauty pageants have, they equip young men and women with skills and opportunities such as chances to win scholarships, improving self-confidence and promoting social skills.