We have all seen those ridiculously Photoshopped pictures of models with the perfect body size, facial features and hair in magazines, online and television. So how far is too far? Is the purpose of these perfect images to make viewers question their own bodies and face and dent their confidence?
It seems as if the modeling industry is obsessed with displaying the following credentials in their models: size zero, a large thigh gap, symmetrical face, slim waist, legs that stretch for miles and almost no body fat.
Please tell me how realistic those expectations are for “real” people?
Granted, the modeling industry is an industry based on appearances and there is nothing wrong with that, but that does not give them free license to give their viewers expectations for themselves that are unrealistic.
Realistically beauty is relative, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. If you do not look like the amazingly skinny Ralph Lauren model, then good, because you are not her. You are you, and you must define your own standards of beauty. The reason that the majority of people are not a size zero with a thigh gap is because that is not what most people naturally look like. If magazines and other picture sources depicted models with more realistic and natural body types, then women might spend less time obsessing over the amount of space between their thighs and spend more time on other things such as studying, working or building their confidence through healthy means.
My personal favorite Photoshop story features a series of “normal” pictures of people whose faces gave been altered with those of celebrities, including Jay Z, Beyoncé, Edward and Bella from “Twilight,” Lady GaGa and Rihanna. This protest shows the amazingly strong power that Photoshop users hold in the palms of their hands. They possess both the power to make people look unrealistically beautiful and to make them look like the “average Joes” that you bump into in Target.
There is a certain art to modeling and editing photos, but going too far can be easy to do this day and age. I am an advocate of real beauty, so that means take it easy on the Photoshopping, and give the world a realistic approach to the standard of beauty.