Child Beauty Pageants

Dyed blonde hair with extensions, glowing orange spray tan, caked on make-up with false eyelashes, colored contacts, fake teeth, and a skimpy outfit. What do you think of when reading or hearing that description. Reading that description some people think of Malibu Barbie, a swimsuit model, or even a prostitute when in all actuality it is a description of an everyday toddler getting ready to go out onto a stage and prance around in a provocative way. The first child beauty pageant, called The Little Miss America Pageant, began in the 1960s at Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey. It was originally for thirteen to seventeen-year-olds, in 1964 there were over 35,000 contestants signed up and participating, which resulted in age-division (2018.) Age division in Beauty Pageants allowed children as young as four months to join in on what some people may call ‘fun.’ Child Beauty Pageants are detrimental to a child’s health, by affecting a child’s development in a negative way, causing

Beauty pageants affect a child’s health. On a 2003 episode of Doctor Phil McGraw’s TV talk show Dr. Phil, Dr. Phil McGraw told pageant moms that they need to explain to their children that, “a beauty pageant is a fantasy,” and if parents did not stress that fact their children “might be concerned more with their looks than their internal selves (McGraw, Sexy Too Soon.)” A child and adolescent psychologist in Maryland agreed with Dr. Phil McGraw. Not only do children competing in pageants measure their self-worth by how they look, they are in for a horrible reality as an adult if they do not stay as ‘beautiful’ when they grow up (Syd Brown, Good Morning America: Beauty Pageants Draw Children and