Will a Magazine's Promise To Use Un-Edited Photos Help Teen Girls?

Last week, 14-year old Julie Bluhm of Maine experienced victory. In April, she began a petition asking SEVENTEEN magazine stop using Photoshop to “improve” the appearance of girls among its pages. She believed that the images portrayed in the magazine were contributing to the poor body image of America’s youth. Her petition garnered major attention and she collected more than 80,000 signatures. The magazine responded by promising to, “Never change girls’ body shapes or faces. (Never have, never will.)”

I’m thrilled at the attention this issue received and I think Miss Bluhm has a bright future in leadership as a change agent. While I appreciate the publication’s response to Julie’s petition, nothing really changes. The magazine is filled with ads. Ads that feature images of girls manipulated to appear taller, thinner, have higher cheek bones, longer necks and unattainable waistlines.  These young girls are adorned with fake eyelashes to sell mascara and fake breasts to peddle bras! So while the editorial feature photos might remain unaltered, the advertisements remain as an example of what girls “are supposed to” look like.

This week, inspired by Seventeen’s recent pledge, a group of teenage girls challenged Teen Vogue to use "Photoshop-free, diverse images of real girls."  Teen Vogue said in a statement that it makes a "conscious and continuous effort to promote a positive body image among our readers." End of story. No apologies, no concessions.

Are you kidding me? Like most women’s magazines, these titles are filled with altered photos of people that don’t actually exist as featured. Anyone who has seen the Dove video, “Evolution” can attest to how any woman can be transformed into a super model with some make up and savvy computer software.

So what’s the big deal? The problem is that young girls are bombarded with these images and many aspire to emulate them. These computer generated physiques are unobtainable and wreak havoc on the fragile self-images of tween and teen girls. Girls as young as age 8 report being worried about “becoming fat” and ninety percent of teen girls have been on a diet.

Obviously, media is not the only factor. Mothers and other influential women in a girl’s life are her first examples of a woman’s perspective on her own body. When girls hear the women in their lives self-hate for not fitting into their skinny jeans and make negative comments about the appearances of themselves and others, the pattern begins and girls follow suit.

Moms' attitudes about their own bodies affect how daughters view theirs. Mothers constantly on diets, complaining about their weight asking, “Do I look fat in this?” send a loud and clear message that they aren’t good enough. Girls internalize those messages and carry them into adulthood.

With an epidemic of eating disorders and distorted body image, we need to do what we can to help the girls in our lives recognize their true beauty and not let their self-worth be measured in pounds.

It would be wonderful if magazines began reflecting a more realistic standard of beauty, but we as a culture should work on not holding these publications as the yardstick of real beauty. Encourage the girls in your life to appreciate their bodies- tall or short, big or small. Nobody is perfect; not even all those “flawless” models.