Beauty Pageants Are Harmful Essay

Though these pageants try to emphasize on the fact that it is not about physical beauty alone but also about one’s personality, the truth remains that most beauty pageants have as their criteria for participation a minimum height and weight requirement.“If we can understand why the parents are doing what they’re doing, then we can start addressing the problem,” she said.“And I think if the public understands why the parents are doing that then they won’t pay as much attention to these pageants.” She also emphasized the importance of teaching young children that self-esteem is not all about looks.“Achievement by proxy distortion,” however, occurs when parents struggle to differentiate between their own need and their child’s needs, and in order to achieve what they perceive as success, they may engage in risky behaviors, objectification or even abuse and exploitation of a child, elements of which Cartwright said she witnessed at the glitz pageants she attended.“I think it’s fun if they want to play dress up for a little while, but to insist on making that a career or that they’re going to be a model or a Hollywood star, the chances are very slim,” she said in an interview.“Parents have to know their child’s limitations and not press them beyond that because later on that knocks their self-esteem.” Cartwright said she talked with pageant parents who made risky financial investments to support their child’s participation, spending above and beyond the amount of the contest’s top prize.She also witnessed parents putting high pressure on their young daughters to look “flawless” and win at all costs, pushing them to adopt an unnatural and adult-like physical appearance and chastising them for poor performance, lack of enthusiasm or a flawed appearance.As child reality TV star Honey Boo Boo continues to capture the attention of audiences with her boisterous personality and her own show about life on the child beauty pageant circuit, a new paper published today in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry takes a critical look at the very types of pageants in which she and thousands of other children compete in America every year. Cartwright, a registered dietitian and adjunct professor in the University of Arizona’s department of nutritional sciences, suggests that high-glitz child pageants, largely popularized by the TLC hit reality show “Toddlers and Tiaras” and its spin-off “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” often have little to do with the children and much more to do with satisfying the needs of their parents.It further suggests that participation in such pageants can actually be harmful to children’s health and self-esteem.“Everything was based on what these kids look like and the way that these children were displayed or dressed,” Cartwright said.“They were fully made up; they looked like adult women, pint-size.