Children's Beauty Pageants?

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Recommended: Arguments for beauty pageants

Australian and New Zealand psychiatrists have backed calls for child beauty pageants to be banned, saying they encourage the sexualisation of children and can cause developmental harm (Park). Beauty pageants are a controversial topic all over the country because they make children look "sexy", can cause eating disorders/ body image issues, and in some cases are forced into pageants because their mothers want to live their dreams through their child. Children should not be allowed to be in beauty pageants. Hair, skimpy outfits, and makeup play a large role in beauty pageants. After all, children are competing to be the cutest, and if their appearance makes them look cute they could win. They are children, and they are wearing more makeup and beauty products than I have ever worn, "some as young as 3 or 4 who are donning makeup, high heels and fake tans"(Wallace). These children are learning to look and act so much older than they are. Psychologist Wendy Walsh said the danger here is normalizing behavior that once would have been considered extreme and weird. "And now it seems perfectly OK for a little 6-year-old to be walking around in thigh-high boots and short booty shorts and smacking her butt when she dances down a runway? Come on! That's what a stripper does." Children should not be "sexy", or in any way have to worry about their looks. "Over the past 10 years there has been a 270% increase in the number of girls hospitalised with eating disorders" (Loannou). Beauty pageants teach young girls that in order to be successful in life they have to be beautiful, and when people think of beauty they don't, typically, imagine a curvy girl, if you know what I mean. This causes girls to starve their bodies to a point of wher... ... middle of paper ... ...u.au/2011/09/16/beauty-pageants-expose-ugly- truths/>. Maliakal, Lalan. "Child Beauty Pageants - Pros and Cons." Buzzle. Buzzle.com, n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. . Park, Nicky. "Child pageants bad for mental health." The Sydney Morning Herald. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2014. for-mental-health-20110525-1f430.html>. Wallace, Kelly, and Do you think child beauty pageants should be banned in the U.S.? Let us know what you think in the comments below.. "French moving to ban child beauty pageants: Should we?." CNN. Cable News Network, 1 Jan. 1970. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. www.cnn.com/2013/09/19/living/parents-ban-child-beauty-pageants/>. MLA formatting by BibMe.org.

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