Should Children’s Beauty Pageants be Banned? by Sanjana Srinivasan

Should Children’s Beauty Pageants be Banned?

by Sanjana Srinivasan

It’s time. It’s your turn to flaunt your beauty and figure out to the world. At least, that is what your mother told you. Your face feels tight-almost like a gift wrapped in sandpaper-and your heart beats wildly, like a beast against its cage. One step, two steps, then more. In a second, the low hum you once heard turns into an ear-piercing applause. The crowd goes crazy, roaring with what your mother called ‘excitement’. You feel exposed, yet not for who you really are.

For centuries, adult beauty pageants have existed in one form or another. For instance, the medieval British celebrated May Day by picking a May Queen. The first organised proto-child pageant, as a matter of fact, occurred around the same time as the first pageant for adults and was surprisingly more successful! Already, this shows that people have always liked to pick between people and pick one person over another. This is exactly what happens in beauty pageants, and is exactly what I think should not be happening.

To begin with, what is a beauty pageant? Well, it is a beauty contest featuring contestants under 16 years of age. Competition categories range from interviews, various types of clothing for different occasions and sometimes, talent. Hence, kids are obviously caked with tons of makeup on their baby faces to appear more mature and appealing to judges. However, do you know about how this can damage these budding participants?

Generally, makeup is thought of something that makes you pretty, but that is in fact just a ludicrous cover up. All it does to helpless participants is coat their true identity with a mask stocked with chemicals and paint. Excessive appliance of makeup, which is done on every contestant, results in early acne breakouts and can very quickly turn soft, supple skin into rough and patchy ones. Most types of makeup products are highly allergenic and contain several ingredients such as sodium benzoate, propylene glycol and other harsh acids that shouldn’t be put on skin. Since children have sensitive skin, exposure to such products at a young age means expecting their skin to react soon enough through over-exposure. To add on, the back of makeup products show a huge list of unidentifiably ingredients, or no list at all. These lists contain chemicals, parabens and carcinogens that shouldn’t be implemented on anyone.

Moreover, why do pageants require the children to wear makeup? Such competitions should focus on improving internal characteristics or pinpointing talent; all this really does in reality is provide regretful memories for participants as adults, which will be discussed next in the essay.

Furthermore, a very important concern that has been proven to happen to countless people in the past and present is the strong feelings of pain, regret and even insecurities in the future of some child beauty pageants. A research showed that majority of the children were actually only being pushed and controlled by their mothers. At the pageants she observed, tears and temper tantrums were common, with their mums denying them naps or breaks from the gruelling pageant schedules in fear that their appearance may become dishevelled. Even more shockingly, parents were seen feeding their children with caffeinated beverages and pixy stick candies (often referred to as ‘pageant crack’) in order to keep their energy levels high constantly. If feeding raw sugar to children is how desperate their demands have come down to, then parents need to realise the obnoxious mistake they are making. Making kids take part in these pointless beauty pageants is like forcing them to grow up. Plenty of pageants have been through a lot of stress and misery, only to wish that they were never part of something so unjust.

As a perfect example and proof of what damage it causes, here is a real experience of a contestant. Karen, an American citizen, never really thought of it as a disaster that she contested in beauty pageants as a kid. In her case, it was just part of her mom’s obsessive need to show her off. She was put on stage for the first time at the tender age of three- just like how Karen’s grandmother had done with her mom.

During that period, her mother began to literally police what she ate and imposed severely strict and restrictive diets on her as part of her preoccupation of Karen’s weight and appearance.

As a natural extrovert, she obviously had her own share of fun with all the ‘show bizz’ and received plenty of praising for her performances. However, the girl later realised how wrong her opinion was later on and confessed, “But there were darker sides”. She continued by describing the old men that were always present near the performers to stare at them in skimpy outfits, accompanied with the haunting sense that she had no face when it was not made up for the stage. The latent and confusing fear of being looked at sexually continued all through Karen’s adulthood! Now, this is a truly serious and unacceptable feeling that no girl or boy should ever have to feel, especially at such a young age. Keeping in mind that this is just one in a sea of fish, I believe that having pageants around not only serves no purpose, but also de-motivates its participants. It is true that everyone makes their own choices and that it is an individual’s fault for feeling that way, but I am not just talking about one person here. Hundreds of pageants are affected negatively, and importantly, it is the system of the competition that is being blamed. Why are children expected to wear makeup? To dress provocatively? That’s right; because those are the categories involved in them.

Children’s pageants will be an anathema when parents and audiences alike understand that boundaries are necessary for children to attain body ownership and body integrity. 'Sexual'ising them rushes them past important developing stages and prevents them from reaching a healthy adulthood.

Moving on, have you heard about the reality TV series ‘Toddlers in Tiaras’? It is a popular TV series that still airs, where viewers are taken behind the scenes of the shockingly competitive world of child beauty pageants to learn about the wee contestants and their fanatically driven parents. Of course, the show has its own acting crew, but it is fundamentally based off reality.

Entering young women into beauty pageants is wrong and damaging. It can be a severe issue because many parents are actually compromising their daughters’ physical and mental health, all for the sake of ‘Miss Supreme Queen’.

The show ‘Toddlers in Tiaras’ depicts mothers so desperate for their children to win that they force them to undergo UV or spray tans, bikini waxes, and even Botox injections! Unbelievably, most girls featured on the show are below the age of nine. Kerry Campbell, the mother of one of the eight-year-olds displayed on the controversial show explained, “All of this pain and effort will benefit Britney in the end. When she is a superstar earning millions, she’ll always be grateful for what I did when she was so young.” Seriously? Is the mother after her happiness in life or money and fame? Although she is the mother, making a decision for a child and devising one’s future have an immense difference that should be understood and respected.

By all means, pageants claim that boosting self-confidence is their primary goal; they intend on making girls feel confident early on to make obstacles later in life easier to tackle. However, all I understand is that they think that judging young girls is how they become confident. That having unrealistic expectations on appearance is how they become confident. How do they answer to these facts then?

As reported by famous psychologist Phil McGraw, 40% of the children that participated in beauty pageant events had problems psychologically when they grew, and many others were unhappy during the pageants itself. In yet another study, it was come to the conclusion that women who participated in those pageants in the past were more unhappy with their bodies as compared to those who hadn’t. Everybody’s development is determined by events that occur in their childhood. Due to the strong desire to be perfect, many resort to extremes to gain that approval. Horrifyingly, girls even wear ‘flippers’, which are fake teeth to cover up their natural baby ones-a great example of them being forced to grow up.

Judges mainly focus on appearance, attire and perceived ‘cuteness’. As a result, pageant judges suggest to contestants that appearance is the key, and urge them to boast themselves to succeed in the competition. The perceived look and opinion on presentation by other people can lead to grave changes in how one views their body image. Adults and children who participate would feel the pressure to be perfect –on and off stage-and many go through low self-esteem, poor body imagery and thus view themselves negatively.

If children aren’t taught early on that internal beauty is always going to be one’s best value rather than external beauty, they could become more and more absorbed in developing look physically instead of fixating on developing emotionally as a person, which could then lead to several issues.

To conclude, I want to reinforce my point by questioning, how does judging a young kid on their appearance help them in any way? Children should not have to go through the stress and struggle just to be judged by others’ eyes, thus I believe that child beauty pageants should be banned. With so many other simple ways to bring out true talent, it is the sad truth that these pageants occur plainly for the pleasure of viewers, scarily determined parents and the money gotten from these taking place. Therefore, if you believe in trying to put a stop to unjustified beauty contests, please contribute your thoughts on this issue onto www.beautyshouldbehealthy.com . If you can’t personally do something to change things, spread awareness as this itself encourages people to vary their line of thinking and may one day result in the ending of such unacceptable events.