Beauty Pageants and Our Young Girls - Essay Example

Reading these statistics makes me feel even more passionately strong about the plight of children. It strengthens my personal opinion on children and their participation in beauty pageants. It is my strongest belief children should be allowed to grow into responsible citizens who can make responsible decisions and change the future of our nations. The lives of children should not be filled with misery and depressing experiences which affect their development negatively.    According to one particular expert, “Beauty Pageants” encourage young girls not to be themselves.  They are associated with an immense variety of negative psychological and social defects as well as inappropriate attention (Kesley Rodriguez, 2013). By participating in such events as pageants at tender ages, young girls want to remain in a particular social class which they may not be able to sustain and as a result, they have to overstretch to appear what they want to be. This is the beginning of social problems for these girls and the results may not be good even though their intentions may not be bad. Scientific research points to a statistic of sixty percent of the children's beauty pageant contestants having psychological problems while the remaining forty percent are not happy during the event (Martina M. Cartright, 2006). This further shows the negative aspects of children taking part in pageant contests.    It is the position of psychologists that one’s development is largely determined and shaped by the events which occurred in their early life during childhood. Beauty pageants lead to individuals desiring to be perfect (Sigmund Freud, 2004). The young girl having been introduced to such a tendency early in life will therefore lead the rest of her life wanting to appear more perfect than others and this may lead her to encounter relationship problems with others. According to Claire Lindsey (2013), beauty pageants for young girls encourage inappropriate and unhealthy tendencies. Physical harm accompanies their struggle for physical perfection e.g. the make hairsprays are not friendly to the skin, especially at tender ages.  Experts argue that when a young woman tends to dress provocatively and imitate the looks of women who are grownups in crowds then something must be wrong. All these statistical data available on pageant events and their effects on young girls as well as expert psychological arguments on growth about such events should serve as a serious warning to those parents allowing their children to participate. The events have a very high potential of harming the development and dignity of our young girls (Kristina Loannou, 2011). The harmful effects can be permanent and as such make the rest of the girl child vulnerable to many antisocial tendencies as well as aggressions in the future. It is the responsibility of the government and parents to ensure sanity by allowing only mature women to participate in such events.   An increasing number of underage girls are participating in these events even in the face of the many adverse effects that may be associated. Psychological problems, depression, antisocial behavior, and the desire to be physically perfect are some of the issues associated with these events according to available statistics and expert opinion. Parents will do us good by not allowing their vulnerable young girls to participate in these events. Read More