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The Correlation between Beauty Pageants and Body Image

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The Correlation between Beauty Pageants and Body Image
children might be more concerned with developing their looks than with developing their internal selves

“Good Morning America.” Not only do children who compete in pageants measure their self-worth by their looks, they are in for a downfall if they don’t stay as pretty when they grow up, says Brown.

University of Arizona, said at PsychologyToday.com that it's not uncommon for teens who used to be in pageants to develop eating disorders and have body image problems.

The average cost of a pageant dress is $1,000, and some cost as much as $5,000, according to a "Good Morning America" report.

Young girls who compete in pageants often look sexy by wearing makeup, hair extensions, “flippers” -- false teeth to hide baby teeth -- revealing outfits and by learning provocative poses and moves. Paul Peterson, president and founder of A Minor Consideration, said on “Good Morning America” that beauty pageants are “feeding the sex industry.”

Is the woman who walks the ramp a true woman?? Who is a true woman?? Is she someone who has the perfect hour glass figure created by strenuous exercise and diet and cellulite chiseling off? Is she the lady from the pageant with that million dollar smile the one that has teeth which have been whitened, who’s had a dentist work away the imperfections.
Is she the one with the silicon curves, the one with injected lips that pout??? The true woman is actually not any of these. The true woman is genuinely phenomenal.

http://www.shareyouressays.com/84366/essay-on-beauty-contests

“It doesn’t matter if you can breathe. It matters if it looks good,” says the mother of a beauty pageant child.

Beauty pageants wrongly teach little kids that the only way to be happy is to win.

http://www.teenink.com/opinion/pop_culture_trends/article/534594/Child-Beauty-Pageants/

A beauty contest is a competition in which the entrants, usually women, are judged as to physical beauty (…) but in reality beauty contests give negative images to girls of all ages.

Beauty contests build up the hopes and dreams of little girls, and even teenagers, only to hurt them later in life.
Being in beauty contests places the importance of a women's physical beauty above her intelligence, which leads most women to believe that their self worth is linked to their appearance instead of their personality.
“beauty catches attention, but personality captures the heart”

Beauty Pageants also give young girl's very low self-esteem and contribute to the increasing rate of eating disorders and suicidal thoughts among young women (http://www.blurtit.com/q281887.html)

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