Controversial Child Beauty Pageants

Talent, Beauty and Intelligence. Portraying these three characteristics guarantees triumph in the immensely over-competitive and controversial child pageant world. The concept of a beauty pageant is a competition in which girls are judged on physical appearance, and their expertise in various skills. Child beauty pageants were first officially introduced into America in 1921 as an attempt to boost tourism although ‘competitive festivals’ date back to 1881 when John Ruskin thought of the idea of creating the ‘May Queen Festival’. The idea of the ‘May Queen Festival’ was that a group of girls were judged, and the most beautiful was chosen ‘queen’. Since then, the popularity of child beauty pageants has continued to flourish, and it is estimated

Imagine preparing for hours how you will present yourself on stage, choosing the perfect dress, spending hours on your hair and makeup, practicing over and over on how you will answer every possible pageant question, to then be disregarded and not receive any award at all. Some may say that failure is a part of life, but to be knocked out week after week when you are substantially trying and constantly seeing failure, it reaches an extent where it is mentally and physically exhausting. It is impossible for it to not take a toll on your self-esteem and the extent to which you believe in yourself. Statistics have shown that 6% of pageant girls experience depression. Although this figure may appear as a mere amount, when we think about how young these girls are experiencing a mental health disorder and how this is purely an extra-curricular activity, 6% really is a shocking amount for something that should be seen merely as leisure. Depression certainly is not the only mental health disorder surrounding child beauty pageants. In Australia and New Zealand, psychiatrists are in favour of banning beauty pageants as they feel they are involved in the sexualisation of young children and promote body-concept disorders. The TLC television show ‘Toddlers and Tiaras’ has given a large scale of young girls the ‘Barbie doll body’ impression and influenced other pageant girls that to be successful as they are, you must false tan, spend hours curling your hair, wear false teeth, but most importantly, have the perfect body size. This creates a large problem as ‘the perfect body’ really does not exist and therefore leads to disorders such as anorexia or bulimia as young girls are just trying to fit