Problems associated with beauty pageants

I think it is ironic how beauty pageants and beauty contests have the ability to make the participants feel exactly the opposite: self-conscious and dissatisfied with their bodies. The very beauty they are showcasing is not felt by the girls who are competing. As with sports focused on aesthetics and graceful lines, beauty contests can cause lower self-esteem and issues with body image. Like anything else, it is a complex issue with many factors at work, but ultimately, it comes down to the environment and purpose behind these contests that cause the issues in young women.

First of all, it has been shown that girls who start competing at a young age have more problems with their body image and psychological issues later in life and adulthood. Beauty pageants are oftentimes a lifelong thing. The show on TLC “Toddlers and Tiaras” shows this to be true. That show is a topic for a different time, since there are just so many things wrong with it but it hints at what causes the problems in the first place. On the show, the little girls are treated like princesses, getting mostly everything they want, with few or no consequences. There are 4 year olds getting their nails done, getting wax jobs and going for spray tans. Why should any preschooler be getting a spray tan? Not to mention the makeup and outfits put on these children. When a 4-year-old looks like a 25-year-old, there is a problem. It may be fun to joke about how a child is prettier than you but when looked at critically, it’s not funny at all. The outfits are blinged out and often leave little to the imagination. Except, the child is practically a baby … very inappropriate. These little girls grow up learning that make-up and beautiful is what makes you beautiful.

Former beauty pageant contestant Nicole Hunter says “I don’t even know what it is to feel attractive without makeup on my face. Until recently, whenever I saw my mother and I wasn’t wearing makeup of some sort she would literally pull a tube of lipstick out of her purse and say, ‘You need makeup.’ Perhaps it’s because I have worn makeup on my face since the age of four. This was when I competed in my first beauty pageant. When children enter beauty pageants at too young of an age, they can develop poor self-image, low self-esteem and even eating disorders.”

She sums it up perfectly and explains why self-image and self-esteem are damaged. It is cliche to say that “it’s what’s on the inside that makes you beautiful” but it is true and it is something that the contestants aren’t really taught. They are taught that external beauty is what wins. Makeup has to be flawless and the more beautiful the clothes, the better. Self-esteem is damaged as they lose touch with what it means to be naturally beautiful.

As in Hunter’s quote, the prevalence of eating disorders increases too. It has to be the thin ideal of our culture and social norm of the contests. The environment of the pageants push for thinness, grace and perfection, which is not only unrealistic but impossible. There is no “perfect body” since everyone has their own body shape. It is unsettling but the average BMI of participants is 18.9, dangerously close to the “underweight” category which is <18.

It is not surprising then that all of these factors can lead to psychological issues like depression and thoughts of suicide. Nearly 6 percent of participants have suffered from depression. I can imagine that the girls who are heavily affected by these pressures may develop a sense of helplessness and depression when they can’t meet up to the standards expected of them. Depression may come when they just don’t feel good enough, beautiful enough, thin enough, etc. These are heavy and toxic thoughts to be thinking and may be heavy enough to feel like maybe life isn’t worth it at all.

Now realistically, beauty pageants will continue with mostly the same procedures and the same expectations. So too, they will continue to cause detrimental effects on the self-image, self-esteem and the psychological states of the participants. However, there has to be something that can be done to reduce these problems. In order to protect these girls from being negatively affected with these issues, there needs to be greater emphasis on natural and inner beauty and affirmation of self-worth. It can be easy to brush this issue off as unimportant and trivial but this is a serious problem. Until our culture begins to turn away from the “thin is in” and “made up” perfection, there has to be some preventative measures taken to remind the participants of their natural and internal beauty separate from the external beauty expected in the pageants.