Child Beauty Pageants Should Be Banned Essay

Child Beauty Pageants Should Be Banned

Two hundred thousand children compete in beauty pageants every year. They have to dress in a certain outfit, look a certain way, and behave in a certain way; hoping to captivate the judges attention. Six percent of people that compete in beauty pageants suffer from depression because of many reasons. Children should not have depression or self-image issues at that age. Once they are diagnosed they normally have to take depression pills, and attend therapy just like adults have to if they are diagnosed with depression or have self-image issues. First of all, people need to stop sexualizing anything women do, because second of all not everything women do is for attention. But, child beauty pageants should

be banned because beauty pageants bring in pedophiles, child beauty pageants should be banned because all children need to be children first, and child beauty pageants should be banned because competing in beauty pageants affects your emotional, physical, and mental health.
It is important to realize that child beauty pageants allow pedophiles to be pedophiles. Most of the children that compete in beauty pageants have to wear tiny, tight shorts and a cut-off top that shows off their stomach. They are coached to “shake their booty” and “work it”. They have fake hair, they have fake tans, fake eyelashes, fake nails, and fake teeth (Tamer pg 85). Children wearing outfits that make them look twenty five is not a good thing. That brings in pedophiles because they can get by with looking at these children without getting in trouble. Psychologists believe more research is needed on the effects of adults viewing sexualized images of children, many agree that such images provide justification and a market for child pornography (Tamer pg 88).
With all of that being said, children need to be children first. The pageant world for young girls can ultimately ruin their childhoods, essentially forcing them to grow up too soon (Lindsey paragraph 5). Children need to be able to have a childhood ultimately to have a healthy lifestyle. They have to make friends when they are younger in order to get the social skills, and happiness in life. They should not have to worry about makeup or their outfits yet. They do not need to worry about fake tans, fake nails and fake hair. Children are expected to perform flawlessly on stage, placing enormous pressure on young shoulders (Lindsey paragraph 9). Children should not have to worry about how good they are on a stage. They should not have that kind of pressure yet. They are just kids, they can learn about all of that stuff when they get older. Most of them do not even know how to read and we are making them stand on a stage and perform “flawlessly” in front of a lot of people they do not know. Child beauty pageants ruin these girls’ childhoods and force them to grow up believing in their looks, rather than in themselves (Lindsey paragraph 10). Children should not be worried about their looks at their age, they should be more focused on their childhood. They are supposed to learn, and have fun; not stress out about how they are supposed to act or how they are supposed to look.
Finally, beauty pageants should be banned because competing in beauty pageants affects your emotional, physical, and mental health.

The desire to be thin has progressed to girls as young as eight years old (Lindsey paragraph 7). No girls should feel like they need to be super thin in order to be beautiful at just eight years old. Putting false images of beauty into a child’s mind is ridiculous. Everyone is perfect in their own way, and we need to start teaching children that instead of us telling them that they need to be thin in order for people to like you. Women that participated in child beauty pageants scored significantly higher on measures of body dissatisfaction interpersonal distrust (Wonderlich, Ackard, and Henderson pg 293). This information is incredibly sad. The girls have been judged all of their life on their appearance and their behavior, and it finally set in when they got older. They believe what the judges tell them, which they should not listen to them. Everyone is beautiful in a different way. Beauty pageants are supposed to celebrate the beauty of women and make them feel powerful, but the reality is they are just degrading (Muhammed paragraph 2). The women feel as if they are not good enough, and begin to have issues with themselves mentally and physically. Women should be celebrated for their different body types, skin tones, and features. Women should not be put down for what they cannot

help.
First of all, people need to stop sexualizing everything women do, because not everything women do is for attention. If we stopped consuming hyper-sexualized images of women, they would cease to exist (Pinsky paragraph 7). If we stopped making pictures or actions that women do sexual, we would be a better world. Women’s bodies are grounds for exploitation inside and outside of the media because such exploitation leads to various economic bottom lines: objectifying women makes certain people money (Pinsky paragraph 8). People make money off of women’s bodies. Just like in beauty pageants, the program is making money off of exploiting young girls bodies, and youth to all of these different people. All for the sake of money. They do not care about the child’s feelings. The media does not create these standards from thin air, but perpetuates them by sensationalizing them in the same way they do with celebrities or news stories (Pinsky paragraph 6). The media goes off of what everyone else is saying online. They see what is popular right now, and make that the new thing. They take stories or controversial topics and make them into something their not. They make women out to be more willing to do anything to get attention, when women do not. Women do not wake up every day to please men. They do not think that wearing a certain outfit, doing their hair a certain way, or doing their makeup a certain way will affect anyone or anything.
First of all, people need to stop sexualizing everything women do because not everything women do is for attention. But, child beauty pageants should be banned because beauty pageants bring in pedophiles, child beauty pageants should be banned because children need to be children first, and child beauty pageants should be banned because competing in beauty pageants affects your emotional, physical, and mental health. Beauty pageants open young girls up to the world of pedophiles, and it is easier for pedophiles to go after the young beauty queens. Beauty pageants do not allow children to be children. They have to worry about adult things. For example, they have to worry about what they are going to wear, how they are going to act, and how they are going to look. Beauty pageants are degrading to women and make them feel less of a person. In fact many people are diagnosed with depression and have self-image issues. Most girls that competed in beauty pageants at a young age suffer from emotional, physical, and mental health issues. Child beauty pageants should be banned. If two hundred thousand children do this every year, we should be trying to protect them. Not make objects out of them for money. Child beauty pageants simply allow pedophiles to get away with being pedophiles. We should be protecting our children, not exploiting them to disgusting people. Children need to be children before anything else. They only have a certain amount of years to be children, and we should let them enjoy it for as long as they can. Participating in beauty pageants affects your emotional, physical, and mental health. Why put your health in danger for the sake of money? You will just end up having to pay that back to all of the doctors, and therapy you will have to go to. Children and women are beautiful in their own unique ways. We should not need other people to tell us that we are beautiful. We certainly do not need people pointing out our flaws. So while people may think that they are opening their child up to new opportunities; they are not. Let us protect the children instead of exploiting them for the money.