Flabby, saggy and discolored.
Those were the adjectives typed and tweeted about an untouched photo of Cindy Crawford in lingerie when it was leaked online.
Many people praised the photo of the 48-year-old former supermodel for representing the reality of aging.
“You are beautiful and you only get more beautiful, and seriously, your skin flawless!” according to lapiduschick8 on Twitter last month.
Some people made negative and judgmental comments.
“I think I crushed my husband’s spirit by showing him the Cindy Crawford untouched photo, #ItHadToBeDone,” wrote KathyLynnHarris on Twitter.
Since the photos were for well-known publication Marie Claire, the debate about the use of Photoshop in fashion magazines and what affect that has on body image has grown larger in mainstream social media.
Ultimately, celebrities should be role models for people all over the world, not idols. They are just people like everyone else.
In this day and age, there is so much support for positive body images, so shouldn’t magazines follow suit and leave Photoshop to the advertisers?
Women all over praised Dove’s positive body image campaign for showing realistic images of women and promoting body confidence in a healthy example of what kinds of models people should be looking at. Their photos depict women of all shapes, colors and sizes with healthy skin and glowing smiles.
New York’s Fashion Week featured model Winnie Harlow who has a skin condition known as vitiligo, which causes pigmentation loss resulting in splotches of colorless flesh all over the body.
Vogue put “Girls” creator Lena Dunham on the cover last year in an effort to depict healthy body images, which it promised to do in 2012. Dunham is not typical of the size 0 models or actresses that usually grace the cover of Vogue.
Immediately afterward, feminist blog Jezebel offered $10,000 to anyone who had the untouched pictures of Dunham’s photo shoot in January 2014.
Within two hours, the untouched photos were published online, revealing more unrealistic photo editing where Dunham’s features were generally sharpened. The editors lifted her waistline, shored up her hip width and elongated her neck.
“It’s clearer than ever what kind of woman Vogue finds Vogue-worthy: The taller, longer-limbed, svelter version of reality.” Jezebel writer Max Read wrote. “Vogue is not interested in reality, of course.”
Dunham said that Jezebel’s act was, “a monumental error in their approach to feminism… It felt gross,” in an interview with Grantland a month later.
There is truth in both Dunham and Jezebel’s arguments, but ultimately, both sides should put the ego away and team up.
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, 42 percent of girls from the first through the third grade want to be thinner, and 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat.
Do Something, an organization of young people for social change, reported that 91 percent of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape.
From elementary school, to junior high and high school, young people are susceptible to every type of influence possible.
When they see these images as real representations of reality, they think they are not good enough or else they begin judging other people’s bodies, and this is where body image and bullying issues begin.
Media literacy classes that analyze the complex messages from media are not an option for students until the college level, but they should be a requirement for elementary school students.
If schools made media literacy a mandatory course, children would realize that what the media portrays is not the reality of how someone should look. They would be able to develop healthier body images at younger ages.
Furthermore, magazines should reduce their use of Photoshop, only using it out of the utmost necessity. They should be using Photoshop to take out the bird that ruined a photo, not to minimize thighs and create higher cheekbones.
With these changes, perhaps there can be a future for healthy body images, as well as decreased instances of eating disorders.
