Yesterday was the NOW Foundation’s Love Your Body Carnival. Given my recent coming out about my body image struggles, I decided (despite my fashionable lateness) that it was particularly relavent and worth writing about.
If you’ve ever paid any attention to advertising, you’ll be aware of the airbrushing that’s used heavily in the beauty industry, to make models look thinner, prettier, flawless. They have no wispy hair, or skin blemishes, and they have perfect figures, with just the right amount of curves. Oh, and occasionally, magical trousers. Well, we all knew the Doctor was special.
But even I hadn’t realised the true extent of the airbrushing that goes on until Debenhams, a department store in the UK, revealed last year a before/after photo of one of their models, and the notes to go along with it. The notes feature comments such as “enhance shadow so cleavage appears fuller” and “skim waist”.
Pain-free plastic surgery, at the click of a mouse!
The report from London’s Evening Standard talks about other steps the department store has taken to promote body confidence, including the use of a disabled model and larger sized mannequins. Sadly, though, I’ve trawled Google for about an hour this evening, and not found any evidence that other high street stores have taken the same positive steps. I studied photography at university, and part of my course included using Photoshop to improve our images. Fortunately, I was never asked to Photoshop a person – only landscapes and still life – as it would have made me feel awful.
Children as young as eight have been treated for anorexia – in times like this, I really do not think we ought to be presenting digitally slimmed down models to young people. These photographs feature women and men that children aspire to look like, and it isn’t just misleading – it’s irresponsible.
This post is part of the 2011 Love Your Body Day Blog Carnival.
YES. This. I’m just nodding in agreement to everything you’ve said here! x