The-F-Word.org

Big Fat Deal posted a discussion today about the photoshopping of actresses in popular women’s magazines, particularly America Ferrara. Writer Francesca for the blog Manolo for the Big Girl, comments:

No, no, Francesca simply wants to know from the editors at Glamour: Is Ugly Betty only HOT! if she gets rid of all the fat from her arms, every bit, and reduces from a C cup to an A? Is it not possible that Ugly Betty, or at least the actress who plays her, is HOT! exactly the way she is?

This comes on the heels of the awful and scary Faith Hill photoshopping controversy that circulated the blogosphere only recently. And of course, many of us have seen Dove’s Evolution video, which chronicles the transformation of an ordinarily pretty woman to billboard supermodel in under 60 seconds.

I would conjecture that it’s fairly common knowledge for many adults that media outlets, particularly those who cater to women, regularly photoshop pounds of their models and airbrush them beyond recognition. But do children realize this?

Last week was Body Image and Eating Disorders Awareness week in Australia and to commemorate the week, the Women’s Forum Australia debuted its publication, Faking It: The Female Image in Young Women’s Magazines. The study explores issues around the objectification and commodification of women’s bodies, body image, and the sexualization of girls.

In an ABC editorial piece, Women’s Forum Australia director and Faking It editor Melinda Tankard Reist concludes:

Thin, sexualised and digitally enhanced mages of women are linked with women’s experiences of poor body image, depression and anxiety and eating disorders. The images contribute to self-harming behaviours and not performing well academically.

In young teenage girls, looking at pictures of thin, idealised models is likely to cause lowered satisfaction with their body and a high state of depression. Reading fashion and beauty magazines is associated with wanting to lose weight and initiating diets.

A five-year study found that reading dieting advice in magazines was associated with skipping meals, smoking, vomiting and using laxatives in teenage girls.

Read the editorial here, and go here for more information about Faking It.

Women’s Forum Australia has also produced a mini documentary about society’s built in messages that you have to be thin and sexy to be acceptable. It’s available on You Tube.

In the video, a 10-year-old tells filmmakers she’s going to go on a raw fish diet to lose weight.

It is so very endlessly sad that girls and women aspire so valiantly to look like an image that isn’t even real.