Kid's Beauty Pageants

Children are usually seen in parks, exploring the outside world in their little innocent minds, living their lives irresponsibly. Today, child beauty pageants opened kid’s eyes on things they are not supposed to encounter in their early childhood. Kids now act like adults; they have unleashed their innocence and pure minds for the sake of beauty.Child beauty contests resemble young kids, under the age of 18. Contestants are usually divided into groups according to their age. Very young aged kids are usually not interviewed dude to their very little knowledge, so only outer appearance is considered. Kids are shown up on stage in different outfits typically wearing make-up and overage hairstyles.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/child beauty pageant )In 1921, the owner of Atlantic City Hotel struck upon the idea to help boost tourism “Most Beautiful Child”. Business owners adopted these competitions, because it increasingly bought about a billion dollars a year. People loved the idea; they encouraged their kids to attend such contests.(zinzi williams, 12/6/10)The murder of Jon Benet Ramsey, born August 6,1990 turned the public spotlight in the late 1996 into child beauty pageants. JonBenet was murdered in her house, the six years old girl was found in the basement with her hands tied up and strangled after nearly 8 hours from being reported missing. However, this case remains unsolved. Critics began to question the ethics of parents who would present their child in such a way.( kareen nussbaum, http://www.minorcon.org/pageant.html )

Parents may think that beauty pageants are helpful for their kids in a way or another, but do you think it's true? Do beauty pageants really show children's abilities and capabilities of presenting their talents? Parents see beauty pageants as a place of progress and development for their child's skills. They play a major role in such contests, by supporting and encouraging their kids to enroll in those contests. Parents who haven't proven theirselves in their childhood, would aim that their children may someday achieve those dreams, without taking into consideration of their own child's opinion and concept. They also interpret that those contests higher their children's self-esteem, confidence, discipline, and patience. Children learn public speaking fluently among irrelevant and unfamiliar massive audience. Pageants help kids deal with competitive challenges throughout their lives and certain issues they may encounter in the future. "Parents with higher income and education beyond high school often site teaching a child how to deal with competition has main reason for entering pageants. Many of them want their daughters to be doctors, dentists or have professional careers." William J. Cromie June 8, 2010. Children are adjusted to be on their very best, well-dressed, neat, and high attitude and reputation.
Pageants are very expensive, not every parent can afford the money to put his/her kid in such contests. First, a minimum cost of $545 to register for the pageant, another $395 for the maximum options of this pageants, an average cost of $655 which includes the formal wear, sports and dance wear, all those costs don't include travel, hotel, and food that nearly cost $200. In universal royal contests, dresses only can cost between $1500 $12,000. Parents are willing to pay all this money, although they know theid kid may win or lose. They prefer to spend their money on beauty contests rather than spending it on their kid's education, instead of helping them focus on their homework and studies, or allowing them to live their childhood, they are overpracticing and working hard on their poses for upcoming competitions. Parents in this case are betraying their kid's trust, a kid may only be aware of this when it's too late for him/her to fix the situation. Thats why parents must ask their child whether they are willing to attend the contest or not before taking any action regarding this issue, because later on parents are not the ones whose going to b affected from these decisions. Parents are also not allowed to force their kids to participate in contests they aren't willing to attend; kids should have the free right of choice. They think their kids are going to appreciate what their parents have done, but in the matter of fact they won't, because they neglected and underestimated their kid's choice. But the question remains, are parents aware of the danger their precious kids are encountering by attending beauty pageant contests?
People believe that beauty pageants give children self-esteem and confidence, others may think that kids grow up before their time and they somehow feel ridiculed.
The debate continues on this issue, young girls encounters things they aren't ready for yet, dressing up like old women and wearing make-up and other fake cosmetics.
Some kids may enjoy being older tha their true age, they might like the feeling of being accepted and enrolled in beauty contests. Girls enrolled flirt with the audience and the judges to vote for them.
On the other hand, shy girls whose parents have forced her to enter won't enjoy it, this will effect her. n both ways, beauty contests have negative effects on little girls, by time they get dissatisfied with their bodies, because we know when a girl grows up her body changes she might get fatter or thiner, so by time the girl may get dissatisfied with her body when she sees the difference, she might feel so down and develop eating disorders, they vomet their food after eating because they don't want to get fat and to stay in perfect form, diseases such as bulemia and anaroxia are mostly common among the girls.
Usually, before the contest in several weeks, those girls are put under great pressure, they practice all day and night, and stay up late for hours to learn what and how they are supposed to act on stage.
Sometimes they quit eating, becuase simply they have no time for them to eat, they're always in a hurry, this effects their physical health.
Those competitors grow up to think that they could only earn money by exploiting their bodies to the audiences, this idea isn't true, because they could earn money in many other important and respectful jobs, they could also have a successful careers.
As william pinson, clinical pyschologist said "Being a little barbie doll says your body has to be a certain way and your hair has to be a certain way. In girls particularly, this can unleash a whole complex of distructive self-experiences that can lead to eating disorders and all kinds of body distortions in terms of body image."

http://www.bsu.edu/news/article/0,1370,-1019-260,00.html