The Price of Beauty . Sarah is an ordinary fifteen year old girl in sophomore in high school. Sarah has big dreams of getting into college and becoming a physical education teacher. After Sarah’s dad gets fired from his job Sarah worries that her dreams of getting into college will be put on hold or worse won’t happen. One day while Sarah is reading the magazine she sees an advertisement for a local pageant. The ad explains a cash prize for the winner and she decides to enter into the pageant in hopes of earning money towards her college tuition. Sarah is also excited to be in a pageant because of how glamorous pageants are shown on television. After a long talk to her mom she goes to the mall with her friends. She finally finds an inexpensive evening gown to showcase for the evening portion of the pageant. Sarah spends hours every day in the mirror perfecting her walk, her smile and her talent. After weeks of preparing for the competition with dieting, exercising, and practicing Sarah is exhausted and wonders how any teenager could continue to participate in pageants. When Sarah arrives she is shocked by the behavior she witnesses from the other contestants; Sarah watches as one girl throwing up in the bathroom, another one has a panic attack, and a few refuse to eat. While preparing for her performance Sarah looks around at the other contestants who she believes are prettier, thinner, and more confident than her. Sarah feels out of place and at the no longer wants to go out on stage fearing that she will embarrass herself. Sarah’s mom goes backstage and talks to her daughter about her dedication, her strength, and her inner and outer beauty. After the short pep talk, Sarah decides to go through with the pageant. Although Sar... ... middle of paper ... ...study, researchers found that Miss America winners had a significant lowered body mass index (BMI) compared to the average women and found that many contestants scored higher on their body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and impulse dysregulation. (Ackard, Henderson, and Wonderlich 291). After collecting and analyzing the data the researchers discussed the reasoning behind the data. In a beauty pageant contestants are always competing and comparing themselves to someone else. The pressure that comes with the competitions and to premeditated idea that “thin is better” all logically contribute to having body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and poor impulse control. . In a study from Susan Haworth-Hoeppner says that homes where weight is a frequent subject of conversation often the children are more likely to develop an eating disorder (Wolfe 436).
“A small study published in Eating Disorders the journal of treatment and prevention, that involved 22 women” (Hollandsworth). Girls are choosing unhealthy ways to stay fit and what they call the perfect size just to have a big appeal to the audience when at pageants. The encouragement of this behavior can lead to many body complications and disorders for these girls as they develop, only because they are not truly developing as an average young lady. “A 2007 report issued by the American Psychological Association Task force on the Sexualization of girls claims that parents who put their daughters in beauty pageants can contribute in very direct concrete ways to the precocious sexualization of the daughters” ( Hollandsworth). There has been research to prove that the actions of the young ladies is not all on their own, they have assistance with getting prepared for competitions and what to perform in competitions. Parents add more than what is necessary and can have a negative impact and not even know they are making matters worst than what they have to be. “Kiddie pageants are flourishing. Fueled by a reality TV show, an estimated 250,000 American girls participate in more than 5,000 beauty pageants every year” (Hollandsworth). Exploitation of these young girls is the “NEW BIG THING” to see and enjoy. Adults would rather watch little girls flaunt themselves
A small town girl from the age of seven watched miss America Pageant and she always wanted to be in it. She was very concerned on how she looked as if she wasn’t pretty enough. She practiced and practiced for the pageant so much. She wasn’t very rich she got her leg warmers from Kmart (Bosley, Cindy. How I Lost the Junior Miss Pageant. N.p.: n.p., 2008. Print.). The dress she wore was here old prom dress. She was very concerned about her mothers lonliness and she included that in her speech. She felt like she lost at birth, with wet shorts, too funky music, engagement ring on her seventeen year old finger and borrowed shoes. She knew she wasn’t going to win because she had so many flaws but everyone does and ahe was too concerned about
...as Miss USA and Miss Universe are competitions intended for mature, self-assured women who are capable of making their own decisions. Child beauty pageants, however, ruin childhoods and force them to grow up believing in their looks, rather than in themselves. It is no surprise, that emotional distress plagues the contestants that participate in beauty long after stepping off of the stage; subjecting young girls of any age to judgment and ridicule is not only humiliating but horrific to think that we are sitting back being entertained by their competitive nature. Rather than raising strong, confident girls who want to achieve the best in life; the parents and the hosts of these competitions provide a platform on which little girls are dressed up as skimpy Barbie dolls and paraded around, trying to achieve some form of perfection that shouldn’t exist in little girls.
One professional psychologist and registered dietician has warned that competing in the beauty pageants may lead young girls to feel that the approval and love of their parents is based solely on their looks and whether they win a crown at the pageant or not. Losing in a pageant category may generate lower feelings of self-worth in young children who do not know how to properly cope with loss at such a young age. Additionally, there are countless examples of women who as children participated in beauty pageants and began stressing at a young age while attempting to maintain an impossible ideal of perfection. Many of the young girls who cannot keep up a perfect look will begin to feel body shame, depression and may even develop an eating disorder. In fact, one study was done on approximately 130 females who had participated in beauty pageants.
The media can impact people’s lives in many ways, whether it’s fashion, movies, literature, or hobbies. One of the impacts is how women view their bodies. Movie stars and models feel pressured to catch attention and to look good in order to have a good career in their respective field. People tend to judge how someone looks based on their body composition. The result of this “judgment” is that Hollywood is getting skinny. Since models and actresses serve as role models for people, people tend to want to look like them. The result of this seemingly harmless model of behavior is in an increase in eating disorders.
It is 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning, and Sharon is about to awaken her eighteen month old baby, Jessica, to prepare her for a long weekend of make-up, hairspray, and gowns. Jessica is one of the thousands of babies forced into the many children's beauty pageants each year. Sharon is among the many over-demanding parents who pressure their young and innocent children into beauty pageants each year and this is wrong.
Children beauty pageants encourage young girl’s to wear make-up, dress in fancy, expensive clothes, and prove to the judges they have what it takes to beat the other contestants. Jessica Bennett states in Tales of a Modern Diva “But this, my friends, is the new normal: a generation that primps and dyes and pulls and shapes, younger and with more vigor. Girls today are salon vets before they enter elementa...
Women in our culture today have developed an obsession with body image and weight that has contributed to the development of eating disorders. The media portrays super-thin models and women take that as the ideal of what they “should” look like. This can have a tremendous impact on their self esteem, and on both the low and high end of the BMI scale, a measure of body fat calculated using your height and weight; whether it be a woman with anorexia, or a woman with obesity. Men also experience this pressure to be muscular and tall, yet it is small compared to what women face. Statistics of college men show that 25% binge eat, 24% diet and 3% purge (Cain, Epler, Steinley, and Sher, 2012). Studies show that people with higher BMI’s experience more body dissatisfaction and and negative body image than people with lower BMI’s (Duncan, al-Nakeeb, and Nevill, 2013). When people feel bad about their body they can experience low self esteem: when a person feels inadequate and lacks respect for the self (Mäkinen, Puukko-Viertomies, Lindberg, Siimes, & Aalberg, 2012). Someone with low self esteem is more at risk for experiencing body dissatisfaction, which can lead to abnormal eating habits (Mäkinen, Puukko-Viertomies, Lindberg, Siimes, & Aalberg, 2012). This can take two forms, dietary restraint and binge eating. High and low BMI has a negative impact on self esteem and body image of women due to the pressure to be perfect in today’s society. The presentation of the following studies of children and adults will seek to understand the differences in men and women and their relationship with BMI, self esteem, and body image through its effect on eating disorders, body dissatisfaction, and the thin-ideal portrayed by the media.
According to the article by Dave Barry, "The Ugly Truth about Beauty", the article compares between men and women. Barry illustrate that men think of themselves as average looking unlike women they always think that they are not good enough. Barry think contributes to this difference is that women when they were young they used to play with a Barbie which make them feel that they have to be perfect just like here and that generate low self-self-esteem. On the other hand men used to play by their action figures. Which they are not a good looker. In this article Barry offer advice for both gender. That women must have self-confidence and men should care about their look just a little more. I am a women and I know that we are some times be obsessed
" In the end, children’s beauty pageants are essentially harmful to both young girls safety and minds. It may not happen to some, but most of the young girls that compete in beauty pageants seem to have a bit of an attitude towards their parents and other people who will not cooperate with them.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Many young girls are forced to wear preposterous outfits and enormous amounts of makeup that deny them of their innocence at a young age. Beauty contests are meant more for adult women who are mature enough to understand all that’s going on and can handle losing competitions to the other contestants. Children should not be able to compete in pageants because of the harmful effects on self-confidence and character. Some people think they are good and some do not agree that they are good. (Leo, 2014)
When entered into a beauty pageant there is a talent portion and swimwear/active wear categories, by having these portions of the contest we are teaching our girls to use their bodies to feel beautiful. A majority of the young girls who are doing the talent portion of the pageant will dance for their talent, these girls are taught to use their cute smiles and sometimes sexual movements to impress the judges to get a crown as representation of their beauty. Over the years a controversy of the swimwear portion of the contest has made an impact to the point where teen pageant competitions now have active wear instead of swimwear in a way to promote a healthy lifestyle that all the girls must have. Even with the switch to active wear girls are still being taught to idolize their bodies, “many of the young women with eating disorders were trained at an early age to value physical perfection, thinness, athletic prowess and attractiveness”. ( Cartwright, Child Beauty Pageants: What Are We Teaching Our Girls?) Another issue that Cartwright brings up about what we are teaching our girls is we are teaching young girls to strive for the wrong form of attention. These young girls are learning that the best kind of attention comes from the way you look. That the outward appearance is what matters, vs whats inside. Pageants also teach girls the wrong form of competitiveness, pageants are teaching them to compare themselves to the girl standing next to them and try to be more beautiful than they are. On the contrary some pageant parents will state that “competing in beauty contests is no different from playing a sport, which also requires time and money and puts intense pressure on young competitors…. like young athletes, little beauty queens learn discipline,and feel great pride in
Not many young girls have the opportunity to dress up in fancy clothes and flaunt what they can do, but there are other pains that come with such moments that can be uncomfortable and confusing to these children, yet to look good they are compelled to grin and bear it. “Four-year-old Karley stands in her family’s kitchen, dressed in a bikini. Unrealistic expectations of being thin, physically beautiful, and perfect are at the heart of some disordered eating behaviors and body dissatisfaction. Scant research has been conducted to see if former pint-sized beauty pageant participants are more likely to suffer from eating disorders, but a small study published in 2005 showed that former childhood beauty pageant contestants had higher rates of body dissatisfaction.” (Cartwright, Martina)
Doctor Gallivan once stated that “53 percent of 13 year old American girls are unhappy with their bodies. This number grows to 78 percent by the time girls[they] reach 17” (Gallivan 4), this statistic shows that at a very young age women/girls already feel unhappy about their bodies because of the way society portray beauty and what is considered acceptable to the public eye. The role of body shaming has a great impact into why teenagers feel insecure about themselves; most common reason why young Americans get bullied in school is because of their weight and shape they are in. In a research article Weight-Based Victimization Toward Overweight Adolescents: Observations and Reactions of Peers it was stated that “nearly 85 percent of adolescents reported seeing overweight classmates teased in gym class”(Puhl, Luedicke, Heuer 699). Body shaming does not always come from random strangers, even direct criticisms from family members could cause a big impact to young girls or our youth. A simple “hey you’re gaining a little weight” from an individual's family member can cause low self-esteem, can make that individual feel insecure about themselves and can push them to practice unhealthy eating habits; if they are not safe in school nor at home with criticisms about their body shape, then where can they be safe from all the judgment and mockery? All
There are so many different opinions on what beauty is. The idea of beauty is purely opinionated. Beauty is your own idea, skinny or thick, long hair or short hair, light skin or dark skin. How people define beauty is unique in many different ways everyone has a different opinion. No ones idea of beauty is the same. In society today it has become more materialistic based if you wear the latest designer or you have the newest pair of sneakers out and the true meaning of being beautiful has escaped our souls. Beauty is not just what we see on the outside it is so much deeper then what we see its what we also have to offer on the inside.Your intelligence is beauty your mind, body, and soul. Beauty is not a single image, but the active embodiment