Child Beauty Pageants Should Be Banned

Beauty pageants have long been criticized for being shallow, idealistic, and detrimental to self-esteem. Despite such allegations, child pageantry has been gaining in popularity in recent years. In these pageants girls are dressed up in frilly dresses, mountains of makeup, and perform a little dance featuring hip shakes and shimmies, often not by their own choice. This rather extreme example demonstrates the prominence of sexualization of children today. Women have been viewed as objects simply for sexual desire for all of history. They are objectified even starting early in childhood, as young girls were, and in some cultures still are, highly sought after goods. While mature looks and sexy clothing used to be reserved for adult women, more and more young girls are interested in obtaining the same older features. Girls are being unfairly sexualized from an increasingly young age.

Pageants world wide have caused plenty of drama and arguments, for example Toddlers and Tiaras. Have you ever realized how many arguments and disputes happen on that show? And, have you ever realized how bad beauty pageants are to our youth? Beauty pageants teach kids at a young age to think that they are better than someone else. Parents sexualizing kids by putting them in pageants the kids are too young to tell there parents no, and they use too much hairspray, are all good examples of how beauty pageants can be bad!

“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

Little girls who are entered into beauty pageants should not have to wear flipper teeth or false eye lashes at that age, they grow up thinking that is the picture perfect image when it is not. When they are older they become nostalgia, reminiscing on what they were because it all comes back to them when they watch the media. Women see themselves as objects because 90% of the films out there portray women as sex objects, and that is how they feel they need to be.

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,

Parents that make the decisions based off of their child, may not always choose the right choice. By putting a child through all of the dressing up, putting on makeup, and so forth, the child can do nothing but accept it and let it happen. According to a study by Anna Wonderlich, it has been determined that kids throughout their childhood have an increased body dissatisfaction and greater impulsive behaviors (Lorenzano). The increased body dissatisfaction can derive from the makeup, spray tans, and wigs that the children are used to wearing. Since they were so used to looking glamorous for the majority of their childhood, they almost never want to look any different from the way they did at pageants. They developed an idea in their head that in order to be successful and win, they must always look and be perfect (Lorenzano). In younger children, their behavior can become more impulsive. Since they are always pressured to win, they develop a tendency to act upon things that are not to their satisfaction or when they do not win. According to Dr. Georgia Witkin, children have trouble understanding the judgement process because throughout their childhood they want to try something new, be thrown into situations that they feel completely insecure about, and open themselves to criticism and (in their minds) ridicule (Lorenzano). Young girls

Our girls grown seeing these models and advertisements thinking that's how they have to look, which is unreal, so they start to think that they're not pretty. Then we have those girls growing up with low self-esteem. However, as these girls are growing up they don't know that the women in those pictures don't even look like that in reality, they're constantly comparing themselves to images of women that aren't even

Girls are sexualized in beauty pageants at a very young age. On Toddlers and Tiaras, girls are shown in ‘sexy’ costumes, showing too much skin, especially for their age. With around 1.3 million viewers a week, the show has normalized this sexualization. In one

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.

TLC’s American reality television show named Toddlers & Tiaras aired in 2009 with glamour, glitz and drama. This show documents the life of young girls and their mothers dramatically preparing for glamour pageants across America. Involving girls being tightened into millionaire rhinestone dresses, spray tanned, forced into fake teeth, hair, eyelashes and nails by demanding mothers. In addition, learning how to strut, pout, smile, wave and look the prettiest to please the panel of judges. All of this resulting in mountains of cash, glistening tiaras, sashes and most importantly the honour of

Throughout time, beauty pageants is the main topic that society have been disputing about. On camera the children are wearing their pretty dresses and a big smile on their face to look cute and in the end to hopefully get 1st place, on the contrary, off camera there’s a lot of stress taken to the child by their parent as well with problems with the child’s stamina, therefore the little girls would have to grow up faster than those who aren’t in beauty pageants.

There are a few factors that cause the onset of the effects, here are just a few. Mary E Dohney ,Ph. D, of the Family Institute at Northwestern University says, 'there girls are taught from a very early age that what is most important in life is their physical appearance, along with superficial charm.' (Hollandsworth). Girls are given fake teeth and hair when they lose baby teeth and when their hair isn't long enough (Cromie). On pageant days the contestants are woken up early to have their hair pulled, curled, brushed and sprayed into place. Their makeup being caked on and mothers running around getting costumes and outfits situated, making sure there child looks perfect for the day ahead. By the end the contestants have been transformed into life sized Barbie's. Is this really what the future generation should grow up like? Starting at a young age with that pressure to be perfect that will only get worse and cause more problems when they are

In modern day society, people often tune into TLC’s hit show Toddlers in Tiaras. Most see it as a harmless pastime for the children, but child beauty pageants are far from harmless. In recent years, child beauty pageants have become increasingly popular all over the U.S, making it a 5 billion dollar industry. Almost 5,000 pageants are held with 250,000 children participating with the majority of the contestants under the age of twelve (“Child beauty Pageants”). Unfortunately, what most viewers do not realize is that many contestants will suffer from sexual abuse and eating disorders by the time they are teenagers. With that being said, beauty pageants have a negative impact on female adolescents.

(Claire Lindsey) “Toddlers and Tiaras” is a show about child beauty pageants

Beauty pageants send the message to contestants that appearance is the most important thing about a person. Children will think that they need to spend thousands of dollars to make themselves look good. They will only desire to try and look beautiful and they won't care about more important things like paying bills and saving money for future things like a new house, cars, and many other things that are more important than just beauty. Pageants also encourage girls to fit narrow invented standards of beauty. Girls try and act like adult celebrities; dressing and walking like them across the stage.