Child Beauty pageants can be both good and bad for a child. It can boost a child’s confidence that would later in life help them, but at other times it could ruin a child who can’t handle to loose. One thing for sure though is that putting your child in a beauty pageant should be something they want to do and something they love and enjoy. Beauty pageants originated in 1921 as a marketing tool and were originally created by a hotel owner who was trying to get the Atlantic City tourists to remain in town for a longer stay. Beauty pageants were discontinued between 1929- 1932 due to the great depression. Although pageants were discontinued for a while they soon became a major event in the lives of Americans. Beauty pageants are one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. Pageant’s range in all age groups but mostly from birth to the age of 30. There are many different types of beauty pageants such as glitz pageants, natural pageants, semi-glitz pageants, face pageants, online pageants, online photo contests, scholarship pageants, and coed pageants. Each type of pageant has its own rules and guidelines. And also there are some of the unwritten rules that you must know in order to be successful. Most contestants practice for weeks hours and hours a week just to prepare for 1 beauty pageant. Competing in beauty pageants can adversely affect a child’s development because it deprives the children from their childhood by forcing them to act and look as an adult would. Children’s beauty pageants can be extremely detrimental to a child’s development; it can lead a child to have low self- esteem and a poor body image on themselves. Beauty pageants reward children for sexualization and teach them that they can be awarded for how they look and for their appearance and that their personality doesn’t matter. A childhood can be taken over by the beauty pageant world by making it superficiality. Beauty contestants and mainly judged on modeling, talent, 12 photos, a swimsuit contest, and evening wear. The score on the modeling is based on poise, looks, and confidence. Many parents pressure their children into competing in these pageants because they were deprived in such treatment when they were children so they pressure their children into doing so. Children at the age of 5 are supposed to be enjoying their childhood playing making friends and going to school, but rather 100,000 children are stuck participating in beauty pageants. Children should grow up learning that its ok not to have to be perfect all the time and that there is more to life than just glitz and glamor. That there’s more to life than paying $5,000 for a dress that you are only going to wear 1 time for a total of maybe 20 minutes. Some pageant moms go as far as dying their child’s hair at a pageant to make them look more like the character they are trying to create and become.
Children should grow up learning that it’s okay not to look perfect and learn that things like the ability, personality, and intelligence are most important not appearance. Some children are made to be a beauty pageant contestant others just weren’t and the parents try to make them be one even though they do not want to