Child Beauty Pageants: What Are We Teaching Our Girls?

This day in time body image is a common problem amongst pre-teen to teen females, as puberty is starting and the media portrays unrealistic body images for girls to fulfill in order to feel beautiful. Participation in pageantry at a young age has been linked to body image and self-confidence problems in future life. Martina Cartwright’s central claim in “Child Beauty Pageants: What Are We Teaching Our Girls?” is that participation in child beauty pageants will children to be affected by “The Princess Syndrome,” which means that pageantry will cause children to have the mindset that they have to have an unrealistic body type to be accepted. Swimwear in adult pageants are based off of physical fitness rather than, the thinness of the contestant.

These little girls prance on stage in expensive swimsuits and are expected to have adult like bodies at such a young age, when baby fat is still a factor! In Psychology Today, Martina Cartwright explains that before presenting the young female on stage, that the parents carved visible abdominal muscles into the girls' stomach with a bronzing spray. The problem is with such demands like this, which the root of body image issues begins. Although, pageants for young children have bad effects, and cause body image issue, beauty contests for young adult women provide confidence and promote healthy living for the contestants! In August of 2014, Mari Wilensky did an interview with Oprah Winfrey where she explained how pageants helped her actually overcome her eating disorder! Mari explains that she had been competing in pageants since the age of four, but stopped competing around middle school. Following the quit, Mari developed an eating disorder; she blames this on the fact that she quit pageantry and that was a mistake because that was her stress outlet! Soon afterwards, Mari began competing again and she overcame her eating disorder.