Nearly a decade ago, I became acquainted with a great friend who opened up my world to makeup, and of course, self-esteem issues. I did not realize at the time how much makeup would change my life. I knew I wanted what every girl wants; it was to have a smooth looking skin and eyes that appear awake, whether it was to impress someone or purely just to feel beautiful. In fact, my freshman year of high school, I would not be caught dead without makeup on my face and my hair as straight as pins. My morning routine increased from 20 minutes to 45 minutes, and over the years, as my friend introduced me to new types of makeup such as concealer, foundation, mascara, and blush, I realized how inconvenient life became. I was getting less sleep and the
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Emotional, physical, and mental healthiness is crucially imperative to an individual, especially a young individual so that he or she can develop properly while transitioning into adulthood. Unfortunately, many child beauty pageant participants are pressured to look their best at multiple competitions, and particularly girls who have started at a very early age fall into a routine of being lectured about their looks. So with all the pressure on little girls to look perfect for the judges, girls can become agitated before, during, and after the competition if things go wrong with their appearance. Regrettably, as mothers constantly continue to pressure their daughters into physical perfection, these little girls can cling to that perfection for the rest of their lives even long after they have outgrown the contests. In fact, according to Lindsay Lieberman, a criminal defense attorney, “…little girls who participate are prone to persistent lifetime challenges, including body shame, perfectionism, and depression and eating disorders” (741). However, University of Minnesota psychologists Anna L. Wonderlich, Diann M. Ackard, and Judith B. Henderson carried out a study and found that child beauty pageants do not influence “bulimic behaviors, body perception, depression, and self-esteem” …show more content…
Some of the girls that participate in child beauty pageants are three years and under, which shows that these girls might not be choosing to partake in the beauty pageants themselves. According to Cartwright, "Critics of child glitz pageants claim that parents are living vicariously through their children, seeking fame and financial rewards from their children’s pageant achievements” (1105). In other words, sometimes the driving force for parents to enroll their children in child beauty pageants isn’t because they believe that the pageants can teach their daughters important life lessons, but because they want to win money or vacation trips to exotic
Emotional, physical, and mental healthiness is crucially imperative to an individual, especially a young individual so that he or she can develop properly while transitioning into adulthood. Unfortunately, many child beauty pageant participants are pressured to look their best at multiple competitions, and particularly girls who have started at a very early age fall into a routine of being lectured about their looks. So with all the pressure on little girls to look perfect for the judges, girls can become agitated before, during, and after the competition if things go wrong with their appearance. Regrettably, as mothers constantly continue to pressure their daughters into physical perfection, these little girls can cling to that perfection for the rest of their lives even long after they have outgrown the contests. In fact, according to Lindsay Lieberman, a criminal defense attorney, “…little girls who participate are prone to persistent lifetime challenges, including body shame, perfectionism, and depression and eating disorders” (741). However, University of Minnesota psychologists Anna L. Wonderlich, Diann M. Ackard, and Judith B. Henderson carried out a study and found that child beauty pageants do not influence “bulimic behaviors, body perception, depression, and self-esteem” …show more content…
Some of the girls that participate in child beauty pageants are three years and under, which shows that these girls might not be choosing to partake in the beauty pageants themselves. According to Cartwright, "Critics of child glitz pageants claim that parents are living vicariously through their children, seeking fame and financial rewards from their children’s pageant achievements” (1105). In other words, sometimes the driving force for parents to enroll their children in child beauty pageants isn’t because they believe that the pageants can teach their daughters important life lessons, but because they want to win money or vacation trips to exotic