Within these beauty pageants children wear grown-up makeup, provocative clothing and age-inappropriate hairstyles. Some would be surprised to know that these pageants sometimes attract perverts and pedophiles. Some might say that the pageants are really meat markets for pedophiles seeking the purchase of a sexual treat. Most of their "looks" are unnatural to boot, some get spray on tans, glued on eyelashes, hair extensions, caps added to their teeth to look perfectly straight and really white, not to mention all the make-up slathered on them. To dress them up in a sexual way, like adults, and make them perform for judges is an act of exploitation. Teaching them to pose and perform for adults sends them a twisted message about life, especially when you consider that their parents are only forcing their daughters into these events as a form of self-gratification. They are forced to believe that looks are everything. They then depend on their looks to get them far in life. However that is not the case in real life. People like other people for many reasons. These reasons include personality, style, grace, sense of humor. People do not judge each other based on their looks all of the time.

It's much like the relationship the abusive Joseph Jackson had with his performing kids in the Jackson Five: the parent isn't looking out for the best interests of their children, but uses their children to act out and fulfill their own interests. Dressing them up to compete in pageants is growing them up too early. What happens if they lose the pageants? They will grow up with low self-esteem because they will think that they aren't pretty enough or cute enough. Child abuse is defined as the exploitation of a child, are these parents exploiting their child beauties?