The Dark Side of Beauty Pageants
With their glamour, expensive dresses, jewels and, big fake smiles, beauty pageant
contestants are just hiding their true personalities under materialistic things. People may
say that beauty pageants arent always about looks. The contestants are scored on beauty,
personality, evening wear, athletic wear and over all perception of the contestant. Beauty
contestant ages range from 2 years old to 60+ years old. The fact that contestants lie about
their beliefs in order to get a good score for their personality and, present stereotypes to the
world that young women to develop eating disorders shows that beauty pageants are bad
for our society.
Beauty pageants have been a cause of eating disorders in many young females for several
years. Young females watching these beauty pageants have developed eating disorders to
look like the contestants, and compete in pageants with them. Most women who enter into
these beauty pageants are slim and in shape. People may say that there are beauty pageants
such as Ms. Classic Beauty for plus sized women to participate in, but this just emphasizes
the point that they are over weight. Why cant plus sized women compete with the petite
women? Beauty pageant contestants are scored on their beauty, personality, evening wear,
and athletic wear. Many women do not want to be seen out of shape for the athletic wear
and evening wear, so for a quick diet they will not eat and soon develop some kind of
eating disorder. Women do this to slim down quickly or to look like the people in the
pageants. People think that to be beautiful they have to weigh 95 lbs, when beauty is in the
eye of the beholder. Even though they are scored on their personality, they are also scored
on the evening wear, athletic wear and overall beauty which adds up over the contestants
personality. About 15% of young women have developed eating disorders in which beauty
pageants should be blamed. Also the same study shows that from the years 1921-1970 the
Miss America pageant winners have shown that the waist and hip to waist ratio has
decreased dramatically over these 50 years (Freese & Meland). This shows that beauty
pageants do have a large impact on the way people view themselves, causing eating
disorders. Over all beauty pageants have brought eating disorders, low self esteem and
depression to many women in our society.
Many beauty contestants lie about their true feelings about certain topics just so they will
