Beautiful skin, flawless, gorgeous, and thin bodies, along with stunning dresses, wearing matching crowns and tiaras is what beauty contests judges want, but what impact is it having on the contestants and the common people? Do we really need beauty pageants? Many girls over the world feel unrecognized if they don’t have the perfect body features, which beauty pageants encourage. Beauty pageants are setting up ridiculous standards in society, so they have to come to end.
Beauty pageants are contests that focus mainly on the beauty of the contestant. At the present, not only adults but, also children and teens have started are taking part in beauty contests. It puts out a very wrong message to the children and teens taking part, that physical appearance is all that matters. Parents have started giving more priority to how their children look, their physical appearance, spending money on different diets to make them lose body fat, instead of giving priority to their studies. Beauty pageants are making children put on artificial looks, by making them put fake eyelashes, putting on makeup, foundation, and whatever will make them look more beautiful. Children start questioning their true beauty when they find that everything they do is being judged. This clearly shows that beauty pageants have spoiled children’s lives, children instead of asking for books and toys, they scream at their parents and say that my makeup is not nice and my clothes are not expensive enough. It is my belief that children should not be put in such contests.
This is not only for children, but even adults and teens should also stop taking part in such contests, in fact, such competitions should not even take place. But to stop such competitions from taking place people have to stop taking part in such contests, and for that people have to change their thoughts and mindset. I ask people that think beauty is everything, is being beautiful an accomplishment? Are you satisfied by being just beautiful, rather than being smart? Is making ourselves look beautiful a talent? I think that inner beauty is more important than what is seen on the outside and that inner beauty should be more appreciated than outside and physical beauty, but judging someone solely based on their outer appearance is what beauty pageants do. We learn various things from various kinds of competitions and activities. We learn to have team spirit and learn sportsmanship from sports, quizzes, sudokus’, puzzles, logical reasoning questions increase our brown power and studying increases our knowledge, but what do we learn from beauty pageants? How to change into different clothes quickly? How to lose weight to have skinny, toned bodies. How to apply makeup in such a way that all the flaws in our face are hidden? Various ways to apply mascara? How to make yourself look like a doll? This is what beauty pageants teach us. It makes us think excessively of the features of our body, which is not right.
India is a country of culture, tradition, and diversity. But that is not all of it, India is also a place where the standards set by beauty pageants is followed, every girl is commented on about various aspects of her body. In India a girl is only judged when she is fat or not fair enough, girls which are not thin and fair are always criticized in India, whereas girls who are thin and fair are always appreciated. Girls who do not have the ideal body aspects, which beauty pageants encourage are always told these lines, “You are so fat and dark who will marry you? Who will give you a job?”. Discrimination is very common in India. Body shaming is also very prominent in India. Beauty pageants put such a mindset in people that, all people are concerned about is the outer beauty of a person. Girls who have been commented in such a way, often have a low confidence level and always find problems with themselves, some girls are not even able to bear these comments and they end up in depression. We know that being in depression is a very dangerous thing as, people who are depressed often end up killing themselves. It is very hard to come out of depression but, it is not impossible, if the person is in a happy surrounding and people talk with that person and try to make the person happy, and not create a negative surrounding around people who are in depression, then it is possible to come out of depression. Depression is not the only thing that happens because of such comments, it also leads to social anxiety, as fear such situations in which they will be judged or embarrassed. They think that other people will also judge them, the same way they are when they are at home. This completely destroys them.
Even though there are people who know that beauty pageants are a wrong thing there is no media coverage about it, in fact even in the media it is often found that only fair-skinned and thin women are allowed to be journalists. Even though their people who are more skilled than the ones who become a journalist, they are not given the job, just because they are not fair and thin. Media channels always say that they always support the people whose basic rights are being violated or people who are being judged and treated in a wrong manner but, aren’t they doing the same thing by not taking in someone as a journalist in their channel, just because the person is not thin and fair. They always say that is always with the ones who are correct and always support them but do they ever think that what they are doing is absolutely wrong, they are judging someone based on their outer appearance. Do they ever think about it? Did they ever realize what they are doing is spoiling another person’s future or maybe even their whole life? Have they ever given a thought to it? They just keep doing the same thing every single time without even realizing what they are actually doing. This has to stop.
These points clearly show how much of negative effect beauty pageants and their ridiculous standards have on society and its people. Beauty pageants hardly have any positives. It makes people focus more on their looks rather than their career. Every person has their own beauty and I think that an individual’s beauty should not be compared with that of others. You cannot compare someone with others on what some judges say is a true beauty, is absolutely wrong. So, I say this again that beauty pageants have to come to an end.
