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Publication: The Daily Universe, , Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
Female contestants in Miss Utah‘s Outstanding Teen competition reflected on how participation in beauty pageants helped them during their mental health journey, a result contrary to some studies and popular belief.
The competition lasted three days, ending on Feb. 26 when Miss Alpine‘s Outstanding Teen Jocelyn Osmond was crowned as the new 2022 Miss Utah‘s Outstanding Teen at the Covey Center for the Arts in Provo.
For many of the girls, this competition was the result of many months of fundraising, rehearsing their talent, improving their interview skills and perfecting and acting upon their social impact initiative.
Beauty pageants are commonly seen as a showcase of vanity and shallowness, and a stressor for the participants. According to the research from West Virginia University, they also present a highly competitive atmosphere that could trigger comparisons, body disconformity, anxiety and other mental disorders.
This connection between child beauty pageants and mental health disorders recently became a topic of discussion again after Miss USA 2019 Cheslie Kryst committed suicide in January.
Days after Kryst‘s death, her mother said the former Miss USA suffered from depression, which she hid from everyone.
“I was extremely sad, she was an amazing person and one of my biggest role models,” said Miss Spanish Fork‘s Outstanding Teen Dakodah Hew-Len. “I wish she had known how big of an influence she had on girls like me.”
Miss Utah‘s Outstanding Teen 2020-2021 Charlee Sorensen knew Kryst and commented on how impressions can be deceiving.
“I think people just assumed that because she was successful, she was happy,” Sorensen said. “We put...