Introduction
Children Beauty Pageant is the outdoor entertainment of children in elaborate and colorful attires that focuses on the ranking of the contestants based on their physical appearance and their genuine ability to respond to the judges’ questions. Children under sixteen years participate in these talent interviews, casual wear, and sportswear competitions (Whitney 455). However, parents may encourage their children to participate in the beauty pageant competition, but it has adverse side effects on their bodies and emotional behaviors. The beauty pageant has both long-term and short-term health effects that result in children’s eating behaviors. Parents have little expectations of their children’s disorder because they assume that their children will grow up to be models and future entertainers.
Therefore, the beauty pageants industry has flourished, luring many children to the industry because of their impressionable minds. Moreover, more than five million participants take part in the beauty pageants competition, including children. Most children enter the beauty pageant industry because of their parents’ choices and blessings to push them to join the industry (Lenert). This is why parents have inadequate expectations of the severe effects of beauty pageants on their children. Hence, there should be immense enforcement of the illegalizing policy of beauty pageants among children. This should be done to save our children from the effects of general body disorders, emotional problems, and image distortions. Most parents push their children in the pageant beauty industry to get money upon their children’s participation without assessing the harmful effects of the actions.
Parents should take good care of their children by protecting them from indulging in beauty pageants competitions. This will only be achieved by making it illegal for the children to participate in the contests. Children are subjected to immense effects from pageant competitions. Therefore, children’s policy participation in the beauty pageants should be enacted and reinforced; thus, warning children from participating in the competitions. The effects are discussed below;
Effects of Beauty Pageants on Children
Participation of children in the beauty pageants competition leads to their body image distortions. It is because young children’s involvement in the pageants focuses on attractiveness, cuteness, and perceived attire. Most of the children participants grow thinner due to losing weight to suit in the beauty industry (Farrales 50). Moreover, the current report shows that more than half the participants have maintained their smaller weight to fit in the thin costumes and win crowns and prizes. The instances of parents subjecting their young children to the use of makeup and spray tans increase the sociological femininity of their children but destroy the outward appearance of their children. However, smoking fake cigarettes, putting on fake breasts influence the children’s physical appearance amidst entertaining a group of people for prizes.
In the above picture, the child has a distorted body image by applying makeup and spray tans, dressing of prostitute outfits, and poor body image. The photo shows how beauty pageant is dangerous to young children through hair extensions, fake eyelashes, fake teeth, spray tan among others. Children’s pageant leads to eating disorders among them since children are advised to eat to a specific limit to remain pretty and attractive to the audience. Following the above effect, the pageants develop severe disorders such as anorexia nervosa. Pageant children feed on crash diets, reducing their weights, thus reducing their appetite for other food substances. It destroys their eating habits on the verge of attracting and winning people during their beauty pageant competition. Moreover, about 6% of the children participating in beauty competitions develop depression issues. Furthermore, eating disorders lead to Princess Syndrome, which is the general thinness of the body and beautifulness of the participants. These are some of the behaviors related to body dissatisfaction and eating disorders.
Nevertheless, intense participation in beauty pageant competitions has long-term effects on the pageant children. It will have a drastic impact on their health status due to poor eating habits when they were still young. The eating disorders will affect children in the future due to body image distress. The reports state that more than 50% of beauty queens aged 11-16 years consider cosmetic surgery to increase their beauty and attractiveness. Furthermore, 6years to 10 years girls undergo hunger strikes to maintain their thinner shapes, thus showing greater body dissatisfaction. Eating disorders lead to depressions, lower self-esteem of the pageant contestants, and dissatisfaction, which hounds them to adulthood.
Due to inadequate parent expectations of their children pageant, children are emotionally disturbed through depression, stress, and anxiety. Since most of the children participating in the pageant competitions have the desire to win at all costs, their failure leads to depression and stress. Furthermore, children also have more zeal and the anxiety of winning as they participate in those competitions. Most children focus their attention on modeling, hence becoming addicted to beauty pageants without assessing their drawbacks.
These competitions are toxic and misleading to women since it requires ladies to be thin, tall, beautiful and attractive to compete with others. This lowers the self-esteem of other contestants who have distorted body images and induces a lot of pressure. Consequently, lady queens are compelled to put on scary attires on the verge of winning money and crowns (McDade-Montez et al.10). This lowers the dignity of the children, and they become physically and emotionally unhealthy because they have reduced their self-esteem in the beauty pageant competitions.
Children’s beauty pageants increase their tendency to be viewed as sex objects and enhance hyper-sexualization among children. This leads to early and premature sexual activities among children who participate in beauty pageant competitions. Through hypersexualization, young children are exposed to mature sexual tools and pictures on social media platforms, leading to their over-sexualization (Biefeld et al. 10). Hypersexualisation is attributed to children’s anxiety, eating disorders, and depression, among other sexual character practices.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, it is prudent to state that children’s rights should be respected to the highest level by banning their participation in beauty pageant competitions. Therefore, parents should also be vigilant and careful about the well-being of their children. Hence, from the above effects of the beauty pageants, it’s clear that children under eighteen years are most vulnerable to beauty competitions which lower their self-esteem, cause depression, stress, anxiety, eating disorders, and distort their body images. “Ban Child Pageant” policy should be enforced, and parents subjecting their children to the same to be arrested for breaking the law.
References
Biefeld, Sharla D., et al. “Sexy, Thin, and White: The Intersection of Sexualization, Body Type, and Race on Stereotypes about Women.” Sex Roles, 2021, pp. 1-14.
Farrales, May. “Repurposing beauty pageants: The colonial geographies of Filipina pageants in Canada.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol 37, no. 1, 2019, pp. 46-64.
Lenert, Taryn. “Pretty Baby: The Conundrum of Child Beauty Pageants.” (2018).
McDade-Montez, Elizabeth, et al. “Sexualization in US Latina and White girls’ preferred children’s television programs.” Sex Roles, vol 77, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1-15.
Whitney, Jennifer Dawn. “Working Girls: Economies of Desire in the American Child Beauty Pageant.” The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, vol 12, no. 3, 2019, pp. 452-470.