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How does it make you feel to hear that eating disorders are now becoming prominent in children as young as 6 years old? Botox, plastic surgery, teeth bleaching, sexual costumes, full face of makeup and a can of hairspray. These are things that are accepted as suitable for full grown women. But what about young girls? I'm taking about young girls at the age of three months old. Would you say these things are suitable for an infant? In the pageant world this is about 250,000 young children's reality. This is outrageous. I am convinced that children's beauty pageants should be banned, because they destroy the mental and physical health of young girls.
Children's beauty pageants have a catastrophic effect on mental health. They constantly embed the idea and message of 'I have to be thin', 'I should be flawless', 'she looks better than me'. When these thoughts are constantly in our mind it produces inadequate and untimely destructive mind set leading us to believe we are not good enough as it is. It is a cliché to say that ‘it's what is on the inside that counts’, but this is something that the contestants are not taught. Instead, they are taught to lather themselves in makeup and that their external body determines their beauty. More so these three-month-old children have to tan, do their nails, have pearly. We are reiterating concept that they are not pulchritudinous without makeup on and it diminishes their self-esteem. We lose the concept of natural beauty. This environment is too intimidating and confusing for young girls who are trying to understand what beauty is.
In conjunction to their mental health why don’t we discuss the stereotypical beautiful girl? How do they have to look? Blonde, skinny, blue eyes, voluptuous, tanned and flawless skin. These are the expectations three-month-old girls have to meet to win a beauty pageant. Not only do they have to compete against their own age group but they compete against all age groups. Meaning a three-month-old infant has to compete against a fully grown 25-year-old woman. How can we expect a three-month-old child to win in this situation? So, not only do these young girls have to worry about social media and the stereotypical meaning of beauty but they are also getting it constantly shoved in their face from parents and these competitions that they have to look a certain way to be identified as beautiful just to win a competition that is utterly useless.
These stereotypical expectations lead me to my next point, physical health. According to the daily mail children as young as six are being hospitalized due to anorexia and other eating disorders. These competitions are destructive to these young children. We are jeopardizing the health of these young girls and putting their lives in danger. And for what? A stupid competition that is based on the way you look and other people’s opinion on their charisma or which child is more attractive. Without teaching them at a young age that they are naturally beautiful we are allowing them to drown in mental and physical health problems. This is proven by researchers from University College London's Institute of Child Health when they found that with 82% of girls were avoiding food, 37% of young children were suffering from anorexia, and 43% had another eating disorder. 1% had bulimia (although this is believed to be an underestimate). A ban on children's beauty pageants will prevent young girls from suffering such trauma.
So, as I said, beauty pageants are harmful to young girls because they affect their mental health, they have unrealistic expectations and stereotypes, and they destroy their physical health. Therefore, they should be banned.
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