The Negative Effects of Child Beauty Pageants free essay sample

Beauty pageants have been around in America for decades; however, they have not gained notoriety until the show Toddlers and Tiaras aired on national television. The airing of Toddlers and Tiaras has brought child pageants to the attention of many Americans. Not many people were aware of what took place in beauty pageants, but ever since the show debuted in 2009 there has been an intense controversy about children as young as newborns being entered into pageants. Some people say that pageants raise self-esteem and teach responsibility, whereas others say that pageants are necessary and children should take advantage of their youth. Although pageants teach etiquette and communication skills, ultimately they carry a vastly high risk of potentially damaging the psychological and physical health of the participating children, as well as their development of strong morals. A child that participates in pageants is at risk for developing mental disorders for several reasons. We will write a custom essay sample on The Negative Effects of Child Beauty Pageants or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The children are constantly being compared to each other and given negative criticism. A child, especially a female that is going to pay so much attention to her looks and that knows she is being assessed for it, is very prone to develop eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia (Grosaru). Eating disorders start mentally, but once the victim loses control of their thoughts, it is highly likely that it will develop into a physical illness. They are competing solely based on physical beauty; therefore, they are likely to feel inferior about their appearances, which leads to misconceptions about themselves. Beauty pageants unknowingly expose the misconception that to be perfect one must be slim, tan, poised, and facially gifted. When a child steps on the stage to perform in front of the judges, they sense that they must be perfect in order to win, and this perfection is based on a fake and impossible standard to reach. Losing a beauty contest can make a child feel inferior because they lose for things outside of their control, like facial beauty or skin tone. Low self-esteem leads to numerous psychological disorders such as depression or anxiety (Tighe). Depression and anxiety can be fatal if not treated properly at a reasonable time. These children are constantly castigated by the people in their environment causing them to develop self-deceptions that can provoke more serious illnesses. Participation in a beauty pageant requires many sacrifices that endanger the bodily health of the contestant. Through societys eyes, being tan makes a person attractive. Parents take their children to get spray tans before pageants to make them look more appealing. Spray tans are not likely to risk skin cancer because the external layer of skin on our body is dead cells, which give no damage to the skin. Nevertheless, when the child is being spray tanned she is breathing in dihydroxyacetone (DHA), a potential carcinogen because it damages DNA (our genetic code) and causes mutations (Ginsberg). Chemicals such as DHA, are extremely toxic when breathed by children whose lungs have not fully developed. Spray tanning children appear to be harmless as well as advantageous to their success in pageants; however, the deceptive truth is that the chemicals contribute damage to the body in a discreet way. Another major factor that causes a threat to the childrens body is their lack of sleep throughout the pageant, as well as the preparation need for a pageant. Child beauty pageants are time consuming and exhausting; therefore, the children are deprived of sufficient sleep. Cartwright, a registered dietitian and adjunct professor in the University of Arizonas department of nutritional sciences (Blue), attended a child beauty competition with kids as young as 4 months to as old as 15 years old. She witnessed a mass display of emotion along with parents forbidding their kids to rest or take breaks concerned that napping would mess up their childs image (Blue). In the study, the research team from the Bambino Gesu Childrens Hospital in Rome, Italy, found that children with GHD (Growth Hormone Deficiency) got substantially less sleep and lower quality sleep than their normally growing peers. GHD impairs a childs immune system, making the child more vulnerable to illness, as well as weakens the strength of the childs heart and lungs. Children that are deprived of enough sleep are more likely to have stunted growth than children that get enough sleep. Watching their children slowly lose energy due to no rest, parents feed them excessive amounts of sugar and caffeinated drinks to keep them vivacious throughout the whole pageant. Frequent consumption of such components in children puts their health at risk. Caffeine causes a childs body to excrete nutrients such as caffeine and magnesium in their urine. When this happens too often, a childs body does not have the nutrients it needs to produce strong bones (Wonderly). When children consume caffeine, it contributes to the lack of nutrients to develop a strong body structure. Parents who feed their pageant child pure sugar and energy drinks ignore the future consequences of their childs health, and only focus on the situation at hand. Pixie Sticks and energy boosting drinks such as Mountain Dew or Red Bull, are commonly used pageant drugs to aid children to stay energetic and alert. These, among many others, indicate the clear deleterious effects engendered by the parents of beauty pageant children; this proverbial dark side of child beauty pageants cause critics to question whether any prospective gains are worth the tremendous cost to the child. Figure 1: Child Beauty Pageants Controversy On an online survey, the question Do you think the values that child beauty pageants are beneficial or harmful to the participant? was asked. Out of 15 people, 2 said that pageants are beneficial and 13 said they were harmful. Lee, Ahram. Child Beauty Pageant Controversy. Survey. www. facebook.  com. Publisher, 6 Mar. 2013. Web. 8 Mar. 2013 Children who frequently participate in pageants involuntarily develop different values of the way of life due to their surroundings. In figure 1, the number of people who said that beauty pageants teach harmful values outweighed the number of people who said that beauty pageants teach beneficial values. The looking-glass self is a collaborative process that says that people unfold images of themselves based on what they think others view them as. Individuals opinions of themselves consistently change as their perceptions of how others view them shift (Thomas). According to the looking-glass self, if a child beauty pageant contestant is constantly told to that she is perfect, beautiful, and the best, eventually she will result in thinking that she is perfect, beautiful and the best. Those kinds of children will become more demanding and disrespectful because they create their own sense of superiority above others. Toddlers and Tiaras star Eden Wood, age 6, threw a tantrum at the Allure Fashion Week Lounge in New York when she could not get her teeth whitened, the New York Post reported Thursday (Toddlers and Tiaras). It is not ethical for six-year old toddlers to be asking to get their teeth whitened. Eden is a very well-known and adored pageant star, consequently she takes advantage of her place in the pageant world by demanding things not suitable for her age and throwing fits when she does not get what she desires. Children that are always being uplifted and admired become full of themselves and disregard any respect that should be given to others. Eden Wood, age 7, referred directly to a grown woman as gurl and interrogated Wendy Williams about her wig and if it was superficial or not (Gorgan). As childrens experience in the pageant world expands, they develop greater risks for learning inappropriate and unethical morals which will create problems when they have to interact and compromise with different people who possess different values. Teaching children how to expose themselves at a high maturity level, beauty pageants exploit a large amount of sexuality to their child participants. In the situation that a child with a more revealing outfit, than the other children have, wins the Ultimate Grand Supreme title, immediately the rest of the children will start to question why they didnt win the title. Once the kids realize that the more sexual appeal they give to the judges, the more they have a chance of winning, some will make an effort to imitate the gestures, facial expressions and tricks that they have been shown (Kaeser). The children begin to process that to be successful in anything, one must reveal herself in a superficial and sexual way; they become narrow minded and grow up into adolescence falsely thinking that there is only one important thing in this world: physical attractiveness. Some have said that beauty contests are good for children because they boost confidence, teach how to present themself and interact with different people, but as demonstrated in this paper, the risks are simply too high and outweigh those benefits. Child participation in beauty pageants is morally wrong because it twists the childrens malleable minds into troublesome issues that have the potential to endanger the safety of them and their family. Pageants promote unethical behavior that leads to unintentional psychological and corporeal defects that may be imperishable.