You might already have heard of beauty pageants for children in America. Maybe you´ve seen or have heard something in the news. In this text I want to inform you about the pressure that is placed on young children and the main effects of the on the children.

There are two main types of pageants: glitz pageants and natural ones. Natural pageants are not as exaggerated as the glitz pageants, I will write about. The main categories in such a competition are talent, sportswear, casual wear, evening wear, western wear, theme wear and yes even swim wear. The children have to do certain movements as “sassy walking” or “pretty feet”. Also the facial expressions like “duck face” are well known in these shows for 4-5 year olds. The girls have to smile through the whole routine,

blow kisses to the jury and bat and flutter with their eyelashes, to be as cute as possible. But a 5 year old girl looking like a doll doing certain expressions, is that cute? I don’t think that sexualizing young girls is cute.

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Big hair, painted nails, spray tanned bodies, fake teeth and flawless make-up is are anything but beautiful or cute. Often it goes so far that the girls don’t look like 5 anymore, they look like 20 year old supermodels, skinny and tall. The beauty craze on a competition is so big that mothers often don’t give their children anything for breakfast so they look thin, their bellies are nice and flat so the tank tops they wear look good on them. Instead of healthy food they give them so called “pixy sticks”, which consist of sugar only, so they get awake. This has mainly the effect that the girls get hyperactive and start running around.
The pressure for the kids is high, for them only the biggest crown means success, well that’s what their parents teach them. Kids are also taught that if they wear short skirts and tank tops, if they do their hair and do their make-up, only then they are beautiful. The girls´ character is completely unimportant in a pageant. Well, the jury does grade the character but how can they see the character of the child if they have a fixed routine which their parents have made up.
They are taught that beauty pageants are their job, it has to be done every other week, no matter if they are sick and have fever they still have to participate in yet another pageant.
I think that the mothers´ main aim is to get famous through their kids, to earn money through their Childs’ performance. What do you think? Feel free to write your opinion about beauty pageants in a comment.