Do "beauty" contests (Mr. America, Miss America, etc.) serve any purpose in society?

Beauty contests can be beneficial and harmful towards society. It can be beneficial to the women and men so they can achieve their dreams to come true. All of them have a dream of helping out either their community, children, and giving back somehow. Beauty contest can give them that opportunity to be notice as someone. It can harm society by providing America with an ideal body image for all men and women to have. The media can influence its audience, especially women, to be dissatisfied with their body image, since in the beauty contest, the contests have to wear swimming suites. With the dissatisfaction will start to have a low self esteem, with leads to dieting and soon an eating disorder. One good thing can lead to other bad things. Beauty contest should be careful on the message their advocating to Americans.