Psychological Problems Associated With the Pageant Lifestyle

A video on ABC news discusses how young the moms are starting their children in pageants and how the pageant life affects them psychologically. The reporter in the video interviewed a pageant mom who started her daughter in pageants when she was one year old.
The video starts with telling us that there is a two week old baby going to compete in the pageant. This to me is just ridiculous. Starting them young is one thing, but when they aren’t even a year old it is just crazy to put them in a pageant. I think a cute baby contest, where they send in photos of their babies, would be a more appropriate for these moms who want to show off their infants.
The video then proceeds to discuss the pressures of winning and how this can have a reverse effect on the girls in these pageants. Some of them have a bad temper and are provoked by the pressures and the rules of competing. This may also turn them into divas. They discuss the costs of these pageants being somewhere around 70,000 dollars and a dress alone could cost 3,000 dollars. Some of the parents get too involved in the pageants and some say they are living through their children. Maybe because they didn’t get to be in beauty pageants when they were younger, now they are forcing their children into them.
When interviewing Terry Real, Founder of Relation Life Institute, he talks about performance based esteem. He says that they think of themselves based on what they look like and what they can do instead of the worth of who you are. This obviously can have ill effects in the future. They could feel like they will get everywhere and anywhere in life with just their looks and also they may think that that is the only thing people will base them on. This can lead to body image issues as well. They may starve themselves to stay skinny and what they see as beautiful. Also in the video was a quote by from the American Psychology Association Task Force that states, “Sexualization of girls is linked to common mental health problems in girls and women…eating disorders, low self – esteem, and depression.” Like I have already discussed, girls who are in pageants at a young age, and who continue to be in pageants, can develop these issues and they may stay with them for a long time. Although girls who are in pageants think highly of themselves in the pageants themselves, this feeling may not parallel their feeling about themselves outside of the pageant world. They may feel like no one takes them seriously, or think they have anything going for themselves except their looks. This can be a very degrading problem and may lead to depression.
When asked about the future problems associated with the pageant life, Mickey, the mother being interviewed, doesn’t seem concerned with these issues. She says that her daughter enjoys being involved in pageants and will let her stop whenever she wants to. This is a good attitude to have toward pageants as some parents force their daughters into the pageants and are too involved in the pageants, making these issues more prominent in the daughters’ lives.