Prom King and Queen: ARGUMENT Against

Personally, I am against having a prom queen and king. In fact, I would be against having any sort of prom royalty as they enforce beauty standards that are already emphasized in our society.

Think about the last time you saw an advertisement for a product. Maybe it was for clothing or makeup. Think about the model you saw in that advertisement, what did she look like? Odds are that she was skinny. In fact, most models today weigh 23% less than the average woman.

Today, 50% of girls between the ages of 11 and 13 see themselves as overweight. Of those girls, more than 80% have attempted to lose weight. Additionally, the National Institute of Mental Health reported that eating disorders were more than twice as prevalent among adolescent females (3.8%) than adolescent males (1.5%). The prevalence of eating disorders among females shows that these advertisements have an effect, and girls are internalizing the idea that being beautiful means being skinny.

And it’s not just girls who are receiving messages about their bodies. Men too chase an ideal body type, a muscular v-body with narrow hips. But according to Aaron Flores, a registered dietician nutritionist (RDN) from Calabasas, CA specializing in the male body image, “these bodies are attainable for a small number of people—maybe half a percent of the male community.” And male teens are responding to the unrealistic beauty standard, as a recent study found that nearly a third of teen boys in the United States report they want to gain weight. Additionally nearly a quarter of young men report taking supplements, or steroids

Is it worth promoting that idea further in a school, a place where a student is being judged on their academics, not their body? Because that’s what prom queen and king is–a beauty contest. If you look at the girls who win prom queen, it’s not the girl who’s working her hardest to get into college or the one who volunteers on the weekends. It’s the girl who is skinny. It’s the girl who has a flat stomach and tiny thighs. And the boys who win prom king aren’t the short boys, or the boys who are smart, it’s the boys who are tall, and have big muscles. Prom queen and king is a beauty contest, and if AC has a prom king and queen we will, willfully, be enforcing a beauty standard that so many girls and boys are destroying their bodies to achieve. • https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/eating-disorders https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/male-body-image-problems#Its-morethan-the-shape-of-our-bodies https://www.texashealth.org/areyouawellbeing/Mens-Health/Eating-Disorders-in-MenAre-on-the-RiseWhat-You-Need-to-Know