Eden Wood

Beauty pageants harmful to child's mental health

CHILDREN participating in beauty pageants are being "exploited" in ways that can be detrimental to their personal development, says the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.   THE RANZCP's Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry chair, Dr Nick Kowalenko, said the competition for a beauty prize where young girls are judged against sexualised ideals can have significant mental health and developmental consequences that impact on identity, self-esteem and body perception.   "Sexualisation is a process whereby a child's value is based on their appearance or behaviour to the exclusion of other characteristics, and ...