Behind the Scenes of Photoshop

Modern print media shows a sort of utopia that many people will just never achieve. According to About-Face.com, “Media exposure has been found to constrain young women’s conceptions of femininity by putting appearance and physical attractiveness at the center of women’s values”, rather than intelligence or ambition. One issue in particular, is the way in which fashion industries are using programs like Photoshop to retouch photos of the female body. Companies are creating unrealistic images of an idealized female body, resulting in an overwhelming increase of body image issues. On average females in our society see 5,000 ads per day, many of which that are intensely retouched. This can lead to mental and physical illness. Modern print media is a main cause for the rise in eating disorders across the female population. This issue has always been recognized, but finally, now in 2015, there are steps being taken to end it. Legislation is at this time, starting to be written and companies are creating campaigns that support the mind and body of your “average” female.

Body image issues are not inborn, but learned. According to Eating Disorder Statistics, “the body type portrayed in advertising as the ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females”. Every time a woman flips through a magazine or sees an advertisement, they are bombarded with pressures of what their bodies “should” look like, despite the fact that these images are not grounded in reality. The images being released are air-brushed versions of models who weigh 23% less than the average woman. As a result, millions of women resort to unhealthy measures to attempt to fit themselves into an impossible mold.

How serious is this problem? According to Self-Image, “Teen girls are more afraid of gaining weight than they are of cancer, nuclear war, or losing a parent”. By using software to redesign and readjust female bodies, companies are harming their audience. After viewing such images, female’s perception of what they look like often becomes distorted. This frequently causes them to engage in risk behaviors, since they feel they do not measure up to the impossible goals set in front of them. A sense of self- loath, shame, unattractiveness and low self-esteem consume females across the world every day. According to Eloise King, “ninety-seven percent of women will say something bad about their body today”. Although women know pictures are clearly airbrushed, their emotional part of the brain fails to rationalize what they know to be true. If this does not change, the effects digitally altered images have on females will only become more dramatic, if that is even possible.

Females are being Victimized

As fashion models have become skinnier, American women have become heavier and the inconsistency creates an environment that often leads to eating disorders. An Australian report established that thirty percent of women ages eighteen to twenty-three have experimented with purging, laxatives, or fasting to achieve weight loss.Females are being victimized by unrealistic anatomy of digitally altered images that populate fashion magazines. The easiest source to blame for this is Photoshop. One of the more popular controversies recently debated was of a Ralph Lauren model who was retouched so dramatically that her head was wider than her waist. Images such as these, are influencing females to go as far as actually transforming themselves into human Barbie Dolls. Last year in 2012, there were 130,502 plastic surgery procedures done for teenagers under the age of eighteen in the United States. The reason for this incredible number of teenagers trying to change their appearance is because they are trying to attain the “perfect look” they see up on billboards.

“We happen to be the plastic surgeons of digital media”

A different perspective on this issue comes from, Becky Olstad, a Photography Instructor at The Art Institutes International Minnesota. She was quoted in an article written by The Art Institutes that stated, “We happen to be the plastic surgeons of digital media”. Olstad said that the collective standard of beauty and any problems it presents is not solely the responsibility of photo editors, but the designers who consistently send over only size zero models are to blame as well. Unfortunately, statements like this and supporters of this idea, fail to recognize the full extent of the problem. Fashion industries are ripping apart females’ self-esteem while it is our job as a society to remind women that beauty is more than skin deep.

As an alternative for focusing on how others fail at being role models, she thinks the best idea is to just create better ones.

Some might say Photoshop is like makeup, but for the digital world. Lauren Berninger, a journalist for the Huffington Post, published a piece about how we should stop blaming the media for our body image issues. She argues that we cannot go on to blame the mass media for “every negative thought girls have about themselves” . Her proposition is that parents, teachers, and community leaders start to arrange for the positive role models that the modern print media fails to produce. She suggested that rather than “demonize” modern print media, people should start telling girls that “the incredible thing about beauty is that it cannot be singularly defined” . Lauren Berninger suggested that rather than letting girls believe that celebrities are the only sources of role models, they should look to find role models in history or women they know. As an alternative for focusing on how others fail at being role models, she thinks the best idea is to just create better ones. The article as a whole states that if females re-channeled the energy they “wasted” on obsessing over their looks into achieving their goals, they would feel a lot better about themselves. While this is all true and seems like an easy fix to this issue, it just is not enough. For years, people have been trying to end this problem by creating support groups and by spreading positive attitudes about all body sizes. Even songs have been produced by overweight females such as Meghan Trainor whose hit song, “All about that Bass” was made to help women feel more comfortable in their own skin. Despite the fact that some of these solutions improve the situation, they do not resolve the widespread self-image issues within females. Therefore, more drastic measures need to be taken.

In recent years, a number of solutions to this have been proposed by governments and private businesses. Contrary to fashion companies like Abercrombie & Fitch, who solely target “skinny and popular” customers, the cosmetic corporation Dove created the Campaign for Real Beauty. The campaign features print and television ads that reflect images of women of various shapes and sizes (Body Image). Dove also started the Self-Esteem Fund, which brings self-esteem programs to girls throughout the country, as well as provide an online resource for females to develop a positive relationship with the way they look (Body Image). Critics say that, “one of the greatest achievements of the Dove campaign is that it initiated a global conversation to widen the definition of beauty”. Many have considered the campaign a breath of fresh air and are excited to see change in the culture of advertising. The campaign reached over 200 million people worldwide, with over 26 million people participating in the campaign online (Springer).

Likewise, American Eagle has stopped altering and manipulating their images with techniques like airbrushing and smoothing of skin. Aerie models strip down and show their flaws; their photographs show dimples, tattoos, and even those dreaded stretch marks. Similarly to Dove’s campaign, the reactions to American Eagles stand against retouching their images was just as positive. A comment left on a BuzzFeed article stated, “Good for them! Not retouching the models is a great way to show women, hey guess what….nobody is Photoshop perfect, not even the models”. These game changing campaigns that challenge today’s beauty stereotypes will hopefully set the foundation for many others to follow.

The Truth in Advertising Act of 2014

Although these few steps have been taken, the problem will continue to exist unless national legislation regulates the use of Photoshop techniques and manipulations in photos being advertised, such as airbrushing out wrinkles or slimming bodies. Our best bet at finding a solution to this issue is by supporting policies and laws that are being created to protect the females in our society. Congress has found academic evidence showing that advertisers altering images of models’ shape, size, and signs of ageing links to emotional, mental, and physical health issues among women. This led to them proposing the Truth in Advertising Act of 2014 , a new bill anticipated to “direct the Federal Commission to submit to Congress a report on the use, in advertising and other media for the promotion of commercial products, of images that have been altered to materially change the physical characteristics of the faces and bodies of the individuals depicted” (H.R.4341). Included in the description of the proposition was the similar policy statement released by the American Medical Association (AMA). The statement encouraged advertising associations to work on developing guidelines for advertisements with public and private sectors also concerned about this issue.

The main goal of the Act, is to have the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) come up with a strategy that reduces the altering of the faces and bodies of individuals represented in advertising, especially in advertisement claims that can affect “consumers’ health or their pocketbooks”. The job of the FTC will be to monitor and write reports about ad industry practices and if they find a fraud case perpetrated on consumers, the agency will file actions in federal court for immediate and permanent orders to have it stopped.

The best solution to fix this ever-growing problem is to pass and support The Truth in Advertising Act. It is understandable that a lot goes into producing an advertisement, and that altering lighting and contrast must occur during the process. However, it is simply unacceptable that the models of these advertisements be retouched in such a way that they no longer look like a real person. Passing this act ensures that females will have more realistic images to admire. Companies will be encouraged to follow in the footsteps of Dove and American Eagle, and will have set regulations for just how much effect goes into their photos. After passing such an act, images being released to the world would show that there is no such thing as a “perfect” body. When photos released by magazines look more like the average, every day woman, it is likely that there will be less females across the world who fail to see beauty in their own reflections. It is important that legislature, such as the Truth in Advertising Act, be written against digitally altering body images released to the public, this way females can begin to find peace and even happiness with the way they look.

This issue is so large and it only continues to grow. This topic really hits home for me, due to the fact that I have personally dealt with strong body image issues and an eating disorder, in which I was fortunate enough to overcome. I hope that there is a day in the near future where the statistics of females struggling with this issue has dramatically decreased, or in a perfect world, none at all. However, right now that is not the case and it is destroying women across the world. Girls are starving themselves, hurting themselves, and killing themselves to fit into society’s image of the “perfect” female.