They’re learning that physical beauty is the primary judges of their character and not their brains. Child beauty pageants are wrong because it encourages sexuality at a young age, they can also create harm for that child, and they are sometimes being forced by their parents to compete. Young girls parading around a stage wearing a bikini and pounds of makeup is very wrong. The outfits that they are wearing are outfits some grown women wouldn’t even wear because it’s so inappropriate. There is a popular television show called Toddlers and Tiaras that documents what goes on during these child beauty pageants.
Of course, Barbie is always there to start these trends. So when these young girls are playing with their brand new Barbie doll, their brain is registering everything about that doll. How popular and perfect she is, and so naturally these girls are beginning to want to be just like Barbie, happy and perfect all the time, which starts many of them on their way to eating disorders. It’s estimated that 8 million people in
TLC’s hit show “Toddlers & Tiaras” has captured the drama and exploitation in the world of child beauty pageants. Young girls are paraded around in expensive costumes, some in overly adult costumes complete with padded breasts. “….viewers and pageant skeptics have been expressing horror at an industry
In this article we are presented with two images, one depicts a young Balinese girl dressed up in all traditional styles of dress performing the local folklore dance as per tradition. While the other picture is of the US pageant start Eden Wood dressed up in a swimsuit with full hair and make up. Harmer presents her contention well; she explains that people shouldn’t be getting all up in arms about child beauty pageants because in reality everyone exploits their children at one time or another in their own way. Her contention is also introduced in the title of the article with the words “SO WHAT!” which sends the message that people really shouldn’t care as much as they are now. In Harmers opening sentence she makes reference to a personal experience that she had while she was holidaying at a hotel in Bali, she says she watched young Balinese girls with their “torsos wrapped in golden fabric, hair elaborately styled, nails painted, eyes fully made up and lips stained ruby red” while they performed alongside their big sisters and mothers, dancing with sheer talent.
Child Pageants: Unethical or Healthy Competition? By Cassie Pombrio October 21,2009 They arrive on stage dressed head to toe in pageant couture; faces painted resembling baby clowns, and as they begin to perform rehearsed routines, they eye the reason they’re there: the 5 foot-tall trophy and crystal tiara lying enticingly in the judge’s grip. According to the Rocky Mountain Collegian, child pageants provide poisonous competition at such a fragile, developmental stage in a child’s life. I quote them, “What these pageants communicate to participants is false conception such as: beauty merits recognition and self-worth based on physical attributes.” Is the strive to become “the complete package” in one of the fastest growing industries in American culture detrimental to self esteem or healthy competition? Beauty pageants entered American society in the 1920’s.
According to modern day society, girls should walk and talk pretty, have perfect skin, and cake on makeup; they should watch their weight and keep up with the newest trends in fashion. The mass media depicts unrealistic images of beauty, which have led many adolescent girls to attempt to become these unattainable figures. Girls go to extreme measures to imitate society’s impractical beliefs of beauty. The pressure that society puts on women to be thin is unhealthy, which links to the increasing rate of eating disorders and psychological problems among young women. There have been plenty of studies linked to the negative impacts of body image caused by the media.
The children that compete in these beauty contests aged generally between 2 to 10 years old (sometimes even younger) usually have one only goal: get the money and get the tiara. Of course, these little beauties do not enter the contests at their own request, but their mothers are the ones to fill in the applications on time, pay the participation fee, create or buy the outfit, establish the type of performance for the talent section (usually some song about the greatest love in one’s life and/or a terrible heartbreak,) create and exercise the hairstyle and make-up, keep a strict rehearsal schedule, hire trainers if the mum herself cannot coach the whole thing, fill in the gas tank and travel hundreds of miles with their children just to spend a weekend on an emotional roller coaster that for most of the mother-daughter teams ends in heartbreak and
Child Beauty Pageants Should Be Banned When you were younger, you probably played dress up, for fun and games. Well, some irresponsible mothers in the United States are taking the concept of dressing up and turning it up several levels, and transforming their children into replicas Barbie dolls. The young pageant model is adorned with fake tans, hair extensions, 50 layers of make-up and fake teeth. After being put in extravagant, often inappropriate costumes, being fed health derogatory substances such as sugar packets and mixtures of high-energy drinks that even children twice their ages don’t even drink and performing tantrums of her reluctance to do her pageant, the juvenile Prima Donna is ready to go. Plastering on an over-exercised smile, the six year old walks on stage, cheered on by the joyful screams of her most-likely overweight mother.
Model Response : Are Children’s beauty pageants an appropriate activity for young girls? Beauty pageants began during the 1960s and have become an entrenched part of American culture that with globalization is being exported around the world. (Nussbaum, accessed 2013). In these pageants, children as young as 3, are judged according to criteria of external beauty and performance that are called “the complete package”. (Nussbaum, accessed 2013) These children are exclusively female.
Beauty pageant participant, Kelsey Killeen said, “When I started going into pageants, it gave me so much self-confidence.” Pageant moms believe pageants are a good way to teach their daughters skills needed in life. Eight main skills mothers thought or hoped their children would learn from pageants were acquiring confidence, learning to be comfortable onstage and around strangers, gaining poise, determining the best way to present oneself, realizing the need for practice, learning good sportsmanship, becoming more outgoing and learning to listen (“Child Beauty”). Some parents have even said that they have placed their children in pageants because of a birth defect their child had (“Child Beauty”). These parents wanted to support the fact that their children are normal and beautiful no matter if they have birth defects (“Child Beauty”). In numerous pageants it is required that the contestant raise money for a local