Persuasive Essay On Child Pageants

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Child pageants have been around for decades, and the popularity of these beauty contests has grown into a massive five billion dollar industry. Many people may be familiar with the controversial television show “Toddlers and Tiaras”, which showcases young children ranging from a few months old to their early teens wearing tons of makeup and dresses that can cost up to eight thousand dollars. Many of these children feel pressured by their parents to win, stressed after hours of practice, and worried about maintaining a “perfect” image. Some of the acts that these girls do on stage are inappropriate and feature revealing outfits, and eventually many emotional and even physical health issues may form in result of being in child pageants. These …show more content…

It is not uncommon to see a 5 or 6 year old dancing inappropriately on stage for the talent portion of the competition. The outfits that they sometimes wear are very revealing and rarely age appropriate. The excess makeup and fake nails, hair, tan and eyelashes make these young girls look disturbingly grown up. All of the fake features hide any signs of their young age, such as baby teeth that are hid by fake teeth called flippers. These children are cheered on while they blow kisses and shake their hips on stage. This may create unhealthy habits. These girls are forced to act grown up, and they often aren’t given the chance to do normal things that kids their age would do, such as play with toys. This is also proven to create body image issues early on. 8 out of 10 children age 10 say that they have been on a diet, and beauty pageants are a major factor in these statistics. Being in beauty pageants can lead girls to believe that looking good is the only thing that matters.
In 2013, France actually banned beauty pageants for anyone under the age of 16. In the United States there is an increasing demand to ban these beauty pageants. Pageants feature inappropriate dances and outfits far too often. The body image of these girls begins to deteriorate as they are pressured to be

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