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Negative effects on childhood beauty pageants
The bad side of beauty pageants
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A Beauty pageants entry fee for a big competition can be about four hundred dollars, their glitz dress can range from five hundred dollars to four thousand dollars. Then additional costumes can range from three hundred to five hundred dollars. Adding more another fifty to hundred dollars to coaching lessons. Additional these are not including travel expense, transportation and hotel costs and food expenses. Children Beauty pageants are quite a cost but they also can be a harm for a child participants. These pageants have detrimental effects on these young participants. They also makes these children sexulizes themselvs in such an early stage in their life. Their unrealistic expectations or standards that cannot be reached. How these parents …show more content…
Studies have shown the connections between childhood beauty pageants and adult disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, depression, and self-esteem. Eleven women who participated in childhood beauty pageants were matched on age and body mass index with 11 non-participating women. Childhood pageant participants scored higher on body dissatisfaction, interpersonal distrust, and impulse dysregulation than non-participants, and showed a trend toward greater ineffectiveness. ( Giroux). This presents that girls who participate in child beauty pageants are more prone to dermatal psychological disorders more than girls who chose to be in a beauty pageants. The study shows how the child mind is still developing and they have a less understanding of life. They take what they learned with them as they become adults and if they lived and breathed beauty pageants and looking beautiful twenty four seven then that's going stick with them that's all what there going to …show more content…
Steal their very innocence. Yet that is precisely what the organisers of children's beauty 'pageants' do (Giroux). Today these parents are taking their child innocent away. They are basically making them like stripper slaves. They tell them to dance like this and talk likes and pose and dress and you're not going to stop until i say you can demanding like they are slaves might label like that because that's how they treated. They drain their kids energy and make them sleep deprived by keeping up with sugar,and energy drinks and these people call it pageant crack to where they force their children to stay up twenty four seven. It amazing what people are willing to do for money or to live their dream and they do it through their
“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
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.
Most young girls like to play dress up in they’re mother’s clothing and messily put on old makeup at least once when they are young. This is all in good nature for the child to express them self’s and have fun with it; after all they are just curious. But pageants are not harmless fun, they take innocent dressing up to a whole new level with fake hair, professional caked on makeup, fake eyelashes, spray tans, fake teeth, and tons of embellished outfits that are sometimes vary improper. With all of this the kids also have to learn routines and poses that are also sometime not appropriate for young girls. According to Wiehe, “to the child, a message is given that sexuality- expressed in clothing, makeup, and certain postures- is appropriate and even something to exploit.” (493) I’m sure not all young girls will come up with this message, but for some that have been doing pageants for years that might think that their only self worth is their body
Beauty pageants have caused an increase in mental and physical issues in young girls who participate. Participation and competition for a beauty prize where infants and girls are objectified and judged against sexualized ideals can have significant mental health and developmental consequences that impact detrimentally on identity, self-esteem, and body perception ("We must protect our kids from the catwalk of shame."). If young girls don't win, they might take it personally and get hurt feelings. The child might end up feeling unattractive or inadequate ("Child Beauty Pageants Pros and Cons.") which can lead to the development of disorders such as bulimia or anorexia. ("How Do Child Beauty Pageants Affect a Child's Development?") These are both eating disorders girls develop to lose weight excessively. Furthermore, the average BMI of a beauty pageant contestant as of 2010 is 18.3 (Beauty Pageant Statistics), which is classified as underweight...
For nearly fifty years, children have been subjected to the world of beauty pageants where they have been forced to behave in an older way rather than their actual ages. I used the word forced because I believe that no 4, 7 year old would actually chose to go through what pageant kids go through every single day. Yet, some of them may view it as a “fun” thing, but it’s mostly that they are expected to see it that way. Rather than them actually believing it’s fun. Beauty pageants just causes unrealistic beauty standards which easily influenced young girls, and they encourage judging on appearance, rather than on a person's character.
The financial burden that pageants bring can really put an abundance of stress on the parents. After the shocking death of Ramsey, the High-Glitz portion of the pageant world surprisingly skyrocketed. Today it is now worth over $5 billion (Blue). With prices of everything today rising, this is not surprising news. The prices of new dresses, shoes, makeup, hair, spray tans, and even flippers (false teeth for young people to cover their always changing mouths) can really add up, not to mention the costs of pageants coaches to teach the kids the perfect way to walk and wave (Woolf 3). Regulars like Alana Thompson (aka Honey...
"The Health Risks of Child Beauty Pageants." Aol.on. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014. .
Martina M. Cartwright, Ph.D., R.D. “Child Beauty Pageants: What Are We Teaching Our Girls? The princess syndrome, self-image and eating disorders.”Psychologytoday.com. 12 Aug 2011. Web. 6 Feb 2014.
The blame isn’t on only the pageants but the parents as well. The parents are the ones paying for the pageants and pushing the children. Although some have benefitted from pageants and become famous most of these girls are being put through “hell”, are sexualized, and then begin to stress and worry about appearance at young ages. In contrast with the previous piece about France banning pageants, the US is very unlikely to do so. Yes, the pageants are too much but not too much of a big deal to ban them completely.
Pageants can cost a lot of money and a lot of time. The average cost to compete in a pageant is about six hundred and fifty five dollars which includes the formal wear, sportswear and dance. This does not include travel, hotel and food, which can be up to an extra two hundred dollars. The dresses for sports and formal wear can cost up to twelve thousand dollars (Nussbaum, 2013).With these high costs, the family may not have enough money to give the child toys that are appropriate for their age....
Imagine you are at home, watching tv. Flipping through the channels, you see a preview for next week’s episode of Toddlers & Tiara’s. They show the girls dressed in frilly, sparkly attire, fake teeth, fake hair, fake tans, and makeup that could transform their faces into someone in their 20’s. These children are usually misbehaving, disobedient, overdramatic and they are between the ages of four and six. Any person could see that this lifestyle is incredibly harmful to these children not just because of what it does to their appearance, but what happens when these little girls’ minds become tainted with the thoughts of needing to be beautiful and talented in order for people to like them. They also learn that being beautiful means doing whatever it takes to make yourself look perfect, even if it means that everything about you is fake. At the same time, when these little girls are dressing up for these shows, they are being put in outfits that could be worn by strippers. This draws attention to sex offenders and pedophiles, which could potentially end up in something tragic. Claude Knights, the director of child protection charity Kidscape, says, "We do know that predators or paedophiles continually tend to justify their interest in children by saying children are sexual beings. That children are now given a channel to become little Lolitas, to be portrayed as older, to almost become mini adults – these are all trends that give legitimacy to that kind of thinking." In the end, children’s beauty pageants are essentially harmful to both young girls safety and minds.
The first beauty pageant can be traced back to P. T. Barnum in 1854, this competition was merely based on looks and was very small. As beauty pageants grew in popularity Barnum hosted many pageants, most of them had no talent or intellect portion. As the years flew by, many types of pageants began to take form. Many of these pageants had a children's portion. One of the most popular types of beauty pageants for children are glitz pageants, these kinds of pageants are known for their risque costumes and pushy parents. They dress young girls up like adult women, teaching them that they need to look ‘sexy’ and ‘adult’ to win a children's pageant. Child glitz beauty pageants are objectifying and sexualizing young girls, creating detrimental harm
According to Dr. M. Cartwright, “many of the young women with eating disorders were trained at an early age to value, physical perfection, thinness, athletic powers and attractiveness.”(2011). A study in 2005 showed that former childhood beauty pageant contestants had higher rates of body dissatisfaction (www.psychologytoday.com, 2011). This statistic is growing every year and needs to have an end to it. Child beauty pageants have a negative impact on children because they lead to mental issues later on, make kids shallow and make kids unsafe. Girls being exposed to beauty pageants have a higher risk of insecurity issues as they grow older.
Beauty pageants demand that competitors spend large amounts of money in synthetic enhancement. This is a poor focus for vulnerable girls and destroys the girls at a very young age. Beauty pageants convince girls that outer beauty is more important than inner beauty, which is totally a false claim. In this paper, we are going to talk about the pros and cons, whys and woes of pageants and if they are manipulative or valuable to kids. Even though that beauty pageants are a good way for girls to make friends. Beauty pageants are harmful to young children and they should not be able to compete until adulthood because beauty pageants teach kids that outer beauty is more important than inner beauty and beauty pageants pose a threat to the safety of children.
They are dressed up to look like adults and sometimes dressed provocatively. “Beauty pageants are a reflection of a culture in which women are not equal. Women’s bodies are not their own but are seen as objects of beauty for others.” (Nasso). Parents of the pageant world don’t always understand how provocative and wrong it is to dress their children up in show outfits or give the child additives to make them look better.