Detrimental Children Pageants
Do beauty pageants for young children have a positive effect? The answer is no. Child beauty pageants consist of modeling sportswear, evening attire, dance and talent. The children are judged based on individuality in looks, capability, poise, perfection and confidence. As the judges call it, "the complete package". The show on TLC called Toddlers in Tiaras is all about the lives of young children who participate in beauty pageants. Just from watching one episode your point of view on pageants can change. Some people say it gives kids confidence from the ability to perform to make a speech in front of a large amount of people. Yes that is a positive, but in most cases the negatives out way the positives. Beauty pageants teach young children that their appearance is what matters. For most beauty pageants the children are put through what the Miss America competitors are put through. The little boys and girls are equipped with spray tans, fake hair, fake nails, an excessive amount of make-up, fake teeth (flippers), and elaborate, expensive dresses. Most of the children don’t even want to do beauty pageants, their parents are the ones forcing them to do it. It is proven that children as young as five years old have a clear image of what their appearance should be, and if it is not up to par then their self-worth dramatically decreases and they feel that they can improve their body through diets.
Toddlers should be taking naps and playing with toys, not learning dance routines, and getting overloaded with hairspray. They are forced to behave as young adults rather than the five year olds that they actually are. Young children spend numerous hours every day practicing speeches and model walks for upcoming pageants rather than focusing on schoolwork and playing with friends. School age participants are also imbedded with the ‘perfect image’. Those girls are worried about whether they are skinny enough, tan enough, toned enough, or pretty enough to meet the standards that beauty pageants have. These children are told that external values outweigh internal values. The pageants are stressful for the children. When you are at a young age you should not be going through stress. Stressful situations shouldn’t even occur to young children, but in pageantry it does. The children feel the pressure from the parents and judges that their performance needs to be perfect to win or even place. The parents get stressed out about money, the competition, whether the judges are fair or not, and all this stress affects their children. These children are taught at a young age that they should portray a certain image. That they should look skinny, tan, have pearly white and straight teeth, to look ‘perfect’. That image stays with them for the rest of their lives, they worry about whether they are good enough. Many of them believe they are not good enough, or that they aren’t skinny enough and that can lead to death. With this image that is imbedded in their head they will do anything to be like that, so some become anorexic and other become bulimic. Not only can this affect them physically but it can also affect them mentally and emotionally. In some cases this image of not being good enough can lead to suicide. It can also lead to the contestants changing their image when they get older through plastic surgery. Also the high heels that these young contestants wear can lead to foot injuries. Pageants portray images that are not suitable for young children. They are seen as to sexualize children through wardrobe, make-up, and dance routines. They wear revealing outfits and dress up as celebrities instead of Disney princesses. They are taught sexual moves and poses for dance routines. All