Couple Pushes For Law To Limit Photoshopping Models; Because It Hurts Young Girls' Self-Esteem

from the self-esteem-act? dept

A couple months ago, we wrote about how the UK Advertising Standards Authority had banned some cosmetics ads, because the women appearing in them -- including Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington -- were way too Photoshopped, and thus the ads were misleading. Back on this side of the pond, it appears that there's an effort underway (led by a "concerned" married couple) to stop Photoshopped models from appearing in ads by forcing any advertisement that so edits a picture to have to reveal that the image is not accurate. They're not doing this based on any sort of "truth in advertising" mission -- but because they believe it's bad for the self-esteem of young girls to see airbrushed and photoshopped models.

It makes for a nice campaign, but it seems like a huge waste of time. Are girls really going to feel different after seeing a photo that says "this photo was adjusted" in fine print somewhere? They're still going to look at the photo. In the end, it seems like this may be a case of trying to fight the symptoms of self-esteem issues, rather than the actual causes. I believe the studies that say many young people have serious self-esteem issues, but part of that is just being young. Tons of young people have low self-esteem because that's generally a part of growing up and learning to be you. Is putting a silly stamp on magazine ads really going to change that? Why not focus instead on programs that actually improve someone's self esteem such that even if they saw photos of impossibly skinny models, it wouldn't bother them?

Filed Under: models, photoshopping, self-esteem, truth in advertising