I think that competing in children’s beauty pageants from a young age affects, or will in the future, the image that the contestants have of themselves and will make them more prejudiced towards others as they grow up as a lase image has been put In their heads of what a ‘perfect’ person should look like.
If the children loose the pageants and don’t win, their self-esteem may be lowered and cause the children to dislike the way they look and make them feel like they have to change it from a very young age. Losing the pageants could also cause the children to feel inferior to the other girls who got a better place than them and feel as though they aren’t good enough. By losing, eating disorders could be sparked when the children grow up because they aren’t happy with how they look compared to others.
In my opinion beauty pageants set an unrealistic ideal of what all girls should look like as the main focus of beauty pageants is physical appearance. When the children don’t win it makes them feel as though they are ‘not pretty enough’ This could encourage the children in the future to rely on makeup and material things to boost their self-esteem an cause them to be judgemental on people who maybe don’t have the same clothes or look as them.
The makeup the girls have to wear in the beauty pageants covers up the young girls natural beauty and forces girls to act and look more grown up than they are, therefore making them want to grow up faster. The girls wear flippers which are fake teeth, fake eyelashes, fake nails, and fake hair and have spray tans as well as wearing tons of makeup. They also wear skimpy and revealing dresses which sexualise the girls and make them think that wearing skimpy outfits is the only way of looking beautiful.
The contestants may be jealous of others who ma place higher or win and could make them very competitive which could be seen in a good way or a bad way. They also learn that beauty is the key to success and that is all that matters when there is much more important things in life. Beauty pageants could also cause children competing in beauty pageants to think that they are better than everyone else when they aren’t.
Parents of the children competing in beauty pageants make them practice for hours even though the children may not want to and instead of teaching their children that they are perfect as they are and don’t need to hide behind makeup, they teach them that being ‘perfect’ looking is more important. Many people believe that parents enter their children in pageants to win the prize money or because they didn’t get entered into pageants by their parents when they were younger.
But although pageants have negative effects, some say that pageants make the children more self-confident and appreciate their beauty and make them become less shy. They also argue that pageants are fun and make the contestants feel special and handle pressure. They also make the girls gracious winners and good losers and teach them how to be comfortable In front of crowds of strangers which is very useful. They can also become very good friends with other contestant and the money they win goes towards college.
I think that if you are going to enter your children into pageants, they should be natural pageants without money as a prize so it isn’t just for winning and they can get more experience and useful things out of it.
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