Persuasive Essay On Beauty Pageants

Beauty pageants are interwoven into the everyday lives of Americans. Citizens grow up watching pageants on television, idolizing pageant girls, and comparing themselves to those girls that they see. While it is normal for American society, it is not healthy. Idolizing and comparing themselves to these perfect people can give girls body complexes about appearance and issues that could be prevented with the abolishment of beauty pageants in the United States. Pageants not only give girls unrealistic expectations for beauty, they also change the relationships between parents and children. High-pressure situations are never good for young kids, but beauty pageants take stress to the next level. Pageants should be prohibited in the United States

One of the criteria for winning a beauty pageant is, of course, beauty, this encourages girls to dress up like adults in order to appeal to judges. Mothers and professional pageant coaches adorn the children with makeup, spray tans, hair extensions, and flippers in order for the girls appear more attractive to the judges and to the crowd. This puts pressure on the young children to always appear more attractive, and it also starts to teach them that beauty is one of the most important things that a person can have. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists released a statement saying that "direct participation and competition for a beauty prize where infants and girls are objectified and judged against sexualised ideals can have significant mental

When children are growing up, they pick up habits and cues from their parents. Marcela Delgado at the Merciad Mercyhurst University stated that “Young girls are ‘sponges;’ they are at an age where they absorb everything in their surroundings, therefore it is not proper for them to absorb a materialistic mentality.” The money spent on pageants teaches children to value material objects, and the idea that it is important to spend whatever amount needed to on looks. The midrange of money spent on a single pageant is $1,500 and they could be as expensive as $3,500 (Sandberg). Many pageant girls pay for multiple outfits, professional hair and makeup, acrylic nails, and spray tans. According to the Pageant News Bureau in 2002 the pageant world makes $5 billion as an industry (Fleishman). Children should be taught to value education and to have good morals, but instead, by spending so much money on these pageants parents are teaching their children that money can be used in place of these things. In addition to the cost of the pageants themselves, according to a study verified by Women’s News, 72% of girls participating in pageants hire pageant coaches (“Child Beauty Pageant Statistics”). These pageant coaches instruct the girls on how to walk, talk, smile, and even wave. Girls hire coaches so that they can be molded into the perfect girl that is most likely to win in a competition based on appearance and manners. Pageants