Child Beauty Pageants

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Recommended: Oversexualization of youth in media

The Crown of Destruction
Every girls dream is to be beautiful, but how much is too far? In the 19th century, the idea of the first pageant took place in Europe (“How Beautiful”). Beautiful men and women were chosen to represent festivities and other events (“How Beautiful”). Pageants look like innocent fun with glitz and glam, but others don’t understand what it can do to children participating in these shows. Mothers subjecting children to beauty pageants can cause eating disorders, a loss of childhood in preparation for pageants, and ultimately it can damage a child’s self-esteem.
Many people already suffer from having to fit a “perfect image” that is embedded in their head on a daily basis through magazines, television, and peers; so why …show more content…

Portraying young children as sex symbols eats away their identity and their self-esteem over time. “Sexualization of children contributes to a raft of negative physical mental health… with outcomes such as… anxiety, low self-esteem and poor academic performance” (“Child Beauty”). No child should ever be dressed as a prostitute or have to worry about stuffing their bra to win a trophy (“US”). If they win that trophy for doing such repulsive acts, how do the parents of these children expect them to have self-confidence or respect for their bodies? Retired pageant performer Thumper Gosney stated: “I would go back and look at videos of myself as a kid in pageants and feel numb because my entire identity was gone” (Hollandsworth). That statement within itself shows that not only are children performing in these provocative shows having short-term effects, but it still continues to haunt them in their adulthood. When these performers feel like they can’t fulfill their parents’ expectations, it also plays effects on their self-esteem. Mothers of these children have high expectations and they go as far as inserting dental prosthetics, applying fake eyelashes, and spray tans (Hollandsworth). Also, this makes these innocent children feel like their natural appearance isn’t good enough, so they have to learn to adjust. Brooke Breedwell said that her mother constantly pushed her to be perfect when she was performing and now she continues to have anxiety about having to always be perfect (HOLLANDSWORTH). “Judged solely on their looks, they measure their own self-worth by how beautiful they are”

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