New research suggests that teen girls and women in the beauty pageant winner's home state may be ... [+]
A new study has found that young women and teens that live in the same states as Miss USA and Miss America pageant winners may be at greater risk of developing an unhealthy body image. Women and girls in the winners’ states report a greater desire to lose weight and a less realistic view of their bodies.
The study researchers, two economics professors from Vanderbilt University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, examined nationwide health surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year, they compared the survey responses from Miss America's and Miss USA's home states to those from other states. They also compared the survey responses from a pageant winner's state to those from the same state in other years.
They found teen girls and young women with home-state pageant winners were more likely to report attempting to lose weight in the year after the crowning. Specifically, young women in a winner’s state were nearly 5% more likely to report trying to lose weight. Teen girls were 6% more likely to report calorie-limiting behaviors and were more likely to describe themselves as heavier than would be indicated by their BMIs. According to national natality data, even pregnant women in the winner's state were less likely than those from other states to report adequate weight gain.
No similar changes in behavior were found for men, teen boys or older women. The researchers concluded that the change in the women's behavior likely resulted from increased media coverage of the pageant in the winner's home state. States that produced Miss America and Miss USA winners see a significant increase in front-page pageant-related news media coverage after the winner is crowned. States with pageant winners were 27% to 37% more likely than other states to have front-page news coverage in the two days after the competition aired. Although the researchers don’t know exactly why the women and girls from winners’ home states were concerned about their weight, they likely viewed the images from the pageant, compared the winner's appearance with their own and concluded that they were not thin enough. The research has not been peer-reviewed and is posted on NBER for comment.
The Miss America pageant has been making significant changes to its format and may no longer harm women and girls. In 2018, Miss America scrapped its swimsuit competition and stopped judging contestants based on their physical appearance. The present study used data collected in the 1990s and 2000s, so reactions to Miss America winners may differ today. In contrast, the Miss USA pageant still strongly emphasizes beauty, and contestants are judged in swimsuit and evening gown competitions. The winner of Miss USA represents the United States in the Miss Universe pageant.
For decades, the pageants have been criticized for perpetuating misogynistic attitudes towards women and beauty, and women marched to protest the Miss America contest as far back as 1968. Nonetheless, this is the first large-scale examination of the real-world repercussions of pageants for women and teen girls.
Prior research has demonstrated that advertisements that include thin women and magazines featuring skinny models have a similar negative impact on women’s body image. "Repeated exposure to media and to both direct and indirect (via media's effects on peers, parents, coaches, physicians, etc.) pressures from media to be thin constitute risk factors for body dissatisfaction, concerns over weight and disordered eating behaviors in adolescent girls and young women," one research review concluded.
Just as the Miss America pageant has evolved and no longer considers women's appearance, many organizations are shying away from hiring skinny models to promote their products and services. Instead, there has been a significant shift in the industry toward promoting body positivity and diversity. However, skinny models still remain the norm.
As a result of this emphasis on thinness, most young girls are not comfortable in their bodies. The National Organization for Women reports that 53% of American girls are unhappy with their bodies. This number grows to a whopping 78% by the time the girls reach seventeen.
