Warning: This Magazine Cover is Hazardous to Your Teenage Daughter's Self-Esteem
Now, I'm not sure what the symbol will be for that warning label or what government agency will regulate the waif-ish model photography that makes your child have a complex department, but the French government believes that all-too-skinny models are creating a problem for the self-images of that country's youth. But it's not the models who should be regulated, says the French government, but those retouching the photos to make them look even MORE skinny that should be regulated, says the WSJ Health Blog.
Warning! This woman doesn't look like this in real life! In fact, she actually has thighs and real cellulite!
There can be no doubt that American children suffer from a similar problem--being bombarded with images of size 0 and dangerously thin, bordering on (or actually unhealthy) models who represent in this day and age the pinnacle of beauty. They establish an unreachable standard for all but a miniscule portion of woman and men who then feel they are failures for not looking like Kate Moss or even Megan Fox.
Would adding a disclaimer on the front cover of fashion magazines make any difference? I doubt it. Adding an icon on the cover that connoted that the image was digitally enhanced would hardly dislodge the notion that women could, should, or can look like the image they are bombarded with in beautiful dresses, bikinis and the like. I applaud the French for trying to think of some kind of policy option to prevent young women, in particular, from feeling as though they must live up to a totally unrealistic standard in terms of their body image; I simply fear that this solution may not do the job.
Summer Johnson, PhD
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The only thing any business understands is Money. If advertisers would stop buys ads in magazines that perpetrated these dangerous images, we might get somewhere.... Or if consumers would 'boycott' companies that advertised (iow 'supported') publications that used these images, there might be some change. Until then, young girls will continue to be self-hating and young men will have pathetically unrealistic expectations of what a woman is supposed to be. A warning label will not change that.
- by conspicuouschick on Sep 23, 2009 at 11:16 AM | link