As you’re flipping through a magazine or channel surfing on TV, beautiful models seem to be shoved in your face trying to sell products or make you want to be them. However, according to an anonymous retoucher, 100% of the pictures you see (especially in fashion and beauty magazines) are photoshopped and manipulated to make these models appear “more beautiful.”

With more and more technologies coming about, photo manipulations are looking less and less falsified. This has led to the recent controversy over photoshopping these already seemingly beautiful men and women, altering their appearance for viewers and readers.

Society and the media have begun to portray people, women especially, as needing to be thin and toned in order to be considered beautiful, but this is simply not the case. People come in all different shapes, sizes and colors, and companies should not be able to determine whether someone is deemed “beautiful” or not.

The media’s portrayal of “average” has been skewed as well. The average woman is a size 14, but most models shown in magazines are most commonly a size 2 or less. An Australian model, Meaghan Kausman, was asked to pose in a photo shoot for Fella Swim, a swimwear company, but when she looked at the photos, she realized, “they had practically cut me in half. So it was pretty mind-blowing,” as stated in the article Model Slams Swimsuit Company for Photoshopping Her to Look Skinnier.

Kausman, who is normally a size 8, was cropped down to look like she was about a size 4. She posted the before and after pictures on her Instagram and captioned the photo, “This industry is crazy!!!! It is NOT OKAY to alter a woman’s body to make it look thinner.”

Kausman is only one of the many models who are now speaking out against this brutal altercation of women and their bodies. In fact some companies, like Aerie, are even jumping on the bandwagon too. Aerie is American Eagle’s lingerie and intimate apparel brand. On every bag, around every store and all over their website, Aerie publicizes that none of their models have been retouched or manipulated in any way. They have even started a hashtag, #aeriereal, which they use to promote this non-manipulative view on their models. Phrases like, “the real you is sexy” and “this model has not been retouched” are plastered all over their brand and Aerie seems to be very proud of their mindset.

With these constant falsifications being pushed onto today’s youth, teen girls especially, self esteem and body images are lower than ever and that needs to change. People should not be shamed for their body type because they don’t look like the hottest models or celebrities. People need to realize that models and celebrities basically get paid for people to look at their bodies, while the average Joe does not. However, their bodies should not be manipulated and changed to fit the media’s standards of beauty.
Sources used:

• Photoshopping: Altering Images and Our Minds
• Model Slams Swimsuit Company for Photoshopping Her to Look Skinnier