I remember when I was a little kid I would sit with my mom and watch shows like Miss America or Miss Universe. I would wonder what it would be like to be in a pageant like that and have everyone looking at how pretty I was in my evening gown. Now a day, little girls do not need to imagine how it feels like to be in a competitive pageant and having everyone looking at you. Young girls all across the United States are participating in these events. They are becoming more and more popular and there is now a show about it. TCL has a controversial series that depicts all aspects of the life of a young pageant girl. It is called Toddlers in Tiaras and it has been airing since January 27, 2009. Many questions have been raised due to this inside look into this industry. From the evidence I have seen, child pageants are harmful to the young girls and boys who participate in them.

Child pageants consist of three different stages: they have to practice, prepare, and perform. The girls and boys do hours of training before the main event. This may include professional dance and pageant choreographers to get them in perfect shape and to get their routines. The majority of the children involved are girls. They have more to do to prepare for the pageants. Most of the moms have them highlight or dye their hair, get spray tans, shave their legs, try different make up looks, pluck their eyebrows, get fitted for their outfits, and wear flippers and fake hair pieces. Flippers are extremely popular with pageant girls and boys; they are set of perfect teeth to wear in the child’s mouth (Toddlers and Tiaras). If they are done right you cannot tell that they are false teeth. Many coaches recommend buying them in case of missing teeth and so the judges can appreciate their perfect smile. After they do all the prep work the main event finally comes. The day of the pageant the girls have to deal with hours of makeup and hair. They get psyched up by their parents and get ready for the competition. Beauty pageants all have different events and themes but the one constant is the prizes. The girls are all ranked and given prizes ranging from cash to crowns to trophies. They get judged in beauty, personality, and originality. It is all about who stands out the most (Toddlers and Tiaras).

Many may wonder if this is truly worth it. The major downfall to this pastime is the cost. The parents of these girls and boys spend a large amount on getting them ready and for the actual pageant. Flippers alone cost anywhere from $200 to $300. Dresses made for the girls can cost anywhere from $200 to $6000 depending on if the parent makes it by hand or if they get it done by a professional designer. The parents also have to pay for lessons, tanning, accessories, fake hair pieces, and hair appointments. Even if the parents go the cheaper route it can still add up and become expensive. Many families are becoming financially in debt and this can cause strain on all of the members in the family. (Toddlers and Tiaras)

One question that has been brought up is who the pageant is for. Watching the show Toddlers and Tiaras, it is noticeable how into the pageants the parents can get. When their child is doing the routine on stage almost all of the moms and dads that have trained their daughter or son is doing the routine in the crowd. One mom said “the routine might as well me mine and not Skyler’s” (Toddler’s and Tiara’s). The same woman also plucked her little girls eyebrows and made her work out with her constantly on her routines. Many of the girls also get yelled at when they are practicing and make a mistake. A majority of the moms said they would be disappointed if their daughter didn’t win.

They should be proud of their kids regardless if they win or lose. The importance of beauty and perfection on these girls shapes them into being dependant on their looks. One of the mom’s said the first pageant she didn’t win queen she took her daughter’s princess crown and threw it on the ground and ran it over with her car. The mom’s put so much pressure on their girls to win; it is all about what the mom wants. Morgan said ‘if I don’t win I feel guilty” (Toddler’s in Tiaras). Life isn’t about winning but that is all the pageants are teaching them

One of the biggest controversies is if they have a negative impact on the child’s self love and psychological health. William Pinsof, a clinical psychologist and president of the Family Institute at Northwestern University said: "Being a little Barbie doll says your body has to be a certain way and your hair has to be a certain way. In girls particularly, this can unleash a whole complex of destructive self-experiences that can lead to eating disorders and all kinds of body distortions in terms of body image. (pg 12)"

The fees of being in a beauty pageant are also ridiculous. It can average around $655 for one girl. Many of the girls are also being exploited by their mothers. “Child abuse is defined as exploitation of a child, are these parents exploiting their child beauties? On a study done by Levey who researched child beauty pageants of the two to six age group for the Harvard University Gazette, she interviewed forty-one pageant mothers who participate in an average of five pageants per year. Levey concluded that mothers of lower-income and education enter their children in pageants because they want their children to learn the proper skills necessary to move up the social scale”.

The article relates because it points out many of the flaws of young girls in pageants. The cost of them can be overwhelming and the emotional ties that come along with it can affect them for the rest of their lives. The girls are also put under great amounts of stress. Hair and makeup along can take around 2 hours to do. Many of the girls will learn to rely greatly on the approval of their mothers, since they tell them how to act and look, and rely on their looks instead of education for their futures. This parental approval vs. education is quite a conflict. Education is important to every child’s life and should be a top priority instead of just looking pretty to get by.

The psychological study done by Dittmar, Helga, Emma, Halliwell, and Suzanne was about how Barbie’s effect the way girls look at their bodies. There were three groups of girls; they were either shown Barbie’s, plus size dolls, or no dolls at all. The girls exposed to the Barbie's had a lower self esteem about their bodies and a higher desire to become skinnier than the other two groups. The oldest girls in the group weren’t affected by the change or lack of dolls. This source is relevant for a couple of reasons. The first reason is the different effects of the study due to age. The youngest girls had a higher influenced opinion based on their surroundings. Barbie’s are somewhat like pageant girls; they are the idle pretty woman and that is what a pageant is trying to make these little girls look like. When you bring a little girl into that atmosphere she would be a lot more affected than an 8 year old would be. The study showed that the 8 year olds didn’t idealize the Barbie’s like the younger girls were. So if you wait to put your child in pageants when she is older instead of as a toddler she will most likely have less body issues.

It is widely known that many girls all over the world are suffering from low self esteem. Pageants have been shown to have a negative effect on it. A one year study about self esteem on the topic of how skinny and beautiful they were was done by Dohnt, Hayley, Marika, and Tiggeann about the impact of society on small children. The self esteem dropped drastically over the year time lapse due to the media and peer pressure. The study showed the “girls' desire for thinness was found to temporally precede low self-esteem”. The girls are all ages 5-8 and they are already finding flaws in their bodies.

The most controversial agreement in child pageants are the sexual undertones associated with them. The little girls and boys’ outfits can be risqué and revealing. The dancing some of them do in the outfits can make it just that much worse. Henry Giroux talks about the exploitations of children and the sexual undertones of child pageants. It is a $5 billion dollar industry that “equips six year olds with bedroom eyes” (Richard Goldstein). Pageants take away the innocence of little girls by dressing them up and parading them around like adults. They are being pressured to look older than they are. Growing up to fast is a huge problem for girls. So many young girls are getting pregnant at younger and younger ages. A sociology teacher at NDSU told us that there are currently 7 twelve year old girls who are pregnant. Girls should not be put into environments in which they are told to act way beyond their age.

When you take a little girl and dress her up in clothes and make up a 20 year old would wear you are making a little girl look a lot more sexual than she should. They put on so much makeup and fake teeth and hair to make her look older. This is a prime little girl for sex offenders. It is the opposite of older girls dressing younger, but he same concept. There are many sick people in the world and this industry may have opened up a whole new group of sex offenders.

Pageants have to do with the ever changing definition of beauty and how it affects everyone. It is starting younger and younger with every generation. Everything from Barbie’s, celebrities, and pageants plays a role in how humans view themselves and others. If a four year old girl is in a pageant and she has to wear a pound of makeup, fake teeth, false eyelashes, a wig, and a spray on tan to win and be considered beautiful, what does that say about our cultures twisted view on beauty? What happened to being naturally beautiful? Four year old girls and boys should be out playing in the mud, not parading around a stage for people to judge him/her on her appearance. There are negative and positive aspects of pageants but if they are not done right the negative impact is never worth the trophy. Beauty pageants should be left to those who are old enough to make the choices for themselves instead of being pushed into a industry based off of beauty being skin.


Works Cited
Dohnt, Hayley, and Marika Tiggeann. "The Contribution of Peer and Media Influences to the Development of Body Satisfaction and Self-Esteem in Young Girls: A Prospective Study." Developmental Psychology 42.5 (2006): 929-936. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Apr. 2010.
Dittmar, Helga, Emma Halliwell, and Suzanne Ive. "Does Barbie Make Girls Want to Be Thin? The Effect of Experimental Exposure to Images of Dolls on the Body Image of 5- to 8-Year-Old Girls." Developmental Psychology 42.2 (2006): 283-292. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Apr. 2010.
Giroux, Henry A. "Nymphet Fantasies CHILD BEAUTY PAGEANTS AND THE POLITICS OF INNOCE
NCE." Social Text 16.4 (1998): 31. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 1 Apr. 2010.
Nussbaum, Kareen. “Children and Beauty Pageants.” Web. 7 April 2010
“Ten most controversial mom’s”. TLC. Toddler’s and Tiara’s. Web.