I do think that beauty pageants affect young girls because not every girl or young woman is going to make it. As with pageants like miss america and miss teen usa amd miss usa only 50 women can get that far and the ones that don't make it have worked harder then the ones that did make it.
Beauty pageants are also not fair because they have to start as young as 9 months even birth and and are put threw alot of hell all for nothing if they don't make it.
As a woman who has never ben pretty enough to be in pageants waatching them on tv has always lleft me feeling uneasy with myself.

i don't think that beauty pageants affect girls because it is there choice and if it is what they want to do then they should be able to at any given time or place

I'm a sixteen year old girl.. i have been in pageants since i was 4. and personally i love them they make me the person i am now.. being able to speak in front of people look beautiful in front of people and not being shy. You dont know what it's like until your actually in it. i work hard and practice like crazy. it makes me a lady and more i meet lots of wonderful girls that enjoy pageant as much as i do. I'm not the 2006 Sunburst Miss Teen Michigan... and im' soo proud to be where i am now.

When mothers dress their little girls like 20 year olds, it is just wrong. To have a 20 year old face on a little girl is freaky looking. Just let your children be children, PLEASE. Their beauty is inside and it is very special, don't harm this beauty.

I am a "pageant girl". I did not start competing until I was 18 and a freshman in college, but as a contestant I can tell you that pageants are not what put girls at risk. I know several girls who've competed in pageants since they were very young and they are well adjusted young women.

Yes, there are systems out there and parents out there who make a pageants the focal point of their daughters' and sons' (yes, there's little boy pageants) lives.

Pageants - especially the International and America system - offer an amazing opportunity for young women to not only support a cause that's important to them but gain scholarships and performance opportunities.

Before I ever entered my first pageant I entertained the same stereotypes as most people, but through experiencing pageants I've come to really enjoy the time I've spent not only competing, but prepairing for them as well.

I've experienced a wealth of positive benefits from my competition in pageants; self esteem has gone up, my public speaking skills have grown, I've been able to increase the attention my platform has recieved locally, started working out (I never though to go to the gym and lift weights before), and I've met some amazing women.

Like anything else in life pageants are not wholly good or bad, but it depends on the people participating. For the most part, however, they are a positive influence on the lives of those participating.

I personally believe that beauty pagents are awful. It makes me sick to my stomach how mothers can actually put that much make-up on a child and those sometimes a little too revealing outfits. Alot of times they get far too competitive for those childrens ages. I would never put my child through that.

It depends what you mean by "at risk". I missed the show unfortunately.

Beauty pageants, in my opinion, are okay, if not taken to extreme. I personally wouldn't put my daughter through anything like that though....and she's absolutely gorgeous both inside and out. I fear that she would get the wrong idea about beauty being about make-up and pretty dresses etc, and her self-esteem could suffer. I would be afraid of sickos out there also.

I know little about the industry though....and I plan to keep it that way as far as my daughter is concerned. There's too much more out there to focus my daughter's attention on than silly nonsense like that.

Kess