The Harmful Effects of Beauty Pageants on Mental Health Essay Example

Beauty pageants, in its entirety, seem to be a harmless form of entertainment but there is a great deal of toxicity to be found at the end of that glamorous runway. Eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression and numerous mental disorders are only a few of the issues triggered by these competitions that we fail to acknowledge and address. For more background, these competitions are known to judge physical attributes, as well as “inner beauty” such as personality, character, and intelligence. In addition to this, these events have taken place countless times throughout the years as an opportunity for fame, fortune, and empowerment. Although these may seem harmless, in reality they cause countless long-term emotional scars to its viewers and participants. Beauty pageants are harmful and should be prohibited since these set an unrealistic beauty standard and cause low self-esteem.

Beauty pageants set an unrealistic beauty standard. In order to win these competitions, contestants must conform to a certain frame of beauty through makeup, plastic surgery, dieting or the use of other mostly dangerous methods to attain physical perfection based on the criteria given by these pageants, leading to the lack of appreciation for one’s natural god-gifted body. Titles like ‘miss sparkling eyes', ‘miss beautiful eyes’ and ‘miss flawless skin’ define how all of one’s physical features should look (Mittal, R.). They completely destroy our perception of beauty, making us believe that one can only be beautiful if they possess specific attributes such as unblemished skin, perfectly done hair, plump lips and so on. These contests also have a particular image of the perfect physique with the ideal measurements of a pageant contestant being a 36-inch bust, a 60-centimeter waist, and 90-centimeter hips, which has been proven to pressure contestants to starve themselves in order to meet irrational standards (News 18.). In relation to this, a study performed on 131 beauty pageant contestants evidenced the pressure of becoming thinner with a reported 48.5 percent of them wanting to become skinnier, 57 percent admitting to dieting in the hopes of losing weight, and 26 percent claiming to have eating disorders (Thompson, S., & Hammond, K.). These negative impacts caused by pageants are not only limited to those who join, but also affect those who watch these competitions. Looking through the eyes of the viewers, there is an evident internalization of the thin-ideal along with the standard of attractiveness constantly shifting towards “thin” or “small” bodies in the media, pushing  millions of women into eating disorders in pursuit of this unrealistic body image while the rest are left feeling insecure about themselves (Everhart, A.). The media has become a gateway for pageants to make people believe that unbelievable features like those are the only things that make one beautiful.  Due to this unreasonable ‘ideal’ image of a perfect person given by beauty pageants, people resort to dangerous and/or unhealthy methods to imitate these unrealistic features.

Beauty pageants can cause low self-esteem to the contestants and to those who watch. We may believe that these contests are completely innocent, but the majority wind-up using these pageants as a tool of measurement in determining their level of beauty. We can see these effects become evident in many child pageants where the pressure on these children to look “flawless'' and the increased emphasis on physical perfection puts girls at risk of obsessing over their appearance in the interest of fixing their ‘flaws’ (Matina, C.). These activities spotlighting superficial beauty also instill the idea that self-worth is tied to attractiveness causing those who do not meet the benchmark of beauty given by these competitions to have low self-esteem (Matina, C.). As written in Psychology Today, issues with self-identity after a child retires from the pageant scene in her teens such as eating disorders, depression, and mental health issues are not uncommon, proving the effect of these contests on a girl's self-esteem and how their behavior towards physical appearance becomes borderline obsessive (Matina, C.). These issues also prove to not only be present in child participants but in all participants of various ages as seen \in a study performed in 2005, where a high rate of mental disorders and low self-esteem were found in beauty pageant contestants especially among those who had lost these competitions (Wonderlich, A.). A pattern of insecurities and low self-worth are frequent in pageant participants caused by their exposure to this toxic environment. It has also fostered the destructive mindset that one will never be beautiful enough unless they change themselves to fit into the frame of beauty given by the judges. Due to pageants also being accessible to millions of viewers all over the world, these issues of low self-esteem and self-worth develop within a vast number of individuals in our society.  These pageants cause individuals to be unhappy with themselves and criticize their own appearances while believing that real beauty is based solely on words of the judges.

Beauty pageants should be discontinued as they cause insecurities and create an irrational portrayal of a beautiful person. These competitions try to tell people that they must starve themselves or change themselves in order to fit their depiction of true beauty. Beauty being a substantial and essential part of one’s life, it should not be limited to a certain body type, bone structure etc. Although the sole purposes of these pageants are to empower and to bring unity among women from different backgrounds, the negatives effects outweigh the positives. These contests do more harm than good and can end up damaging one’s self-image and confidence.