Eighth Grader Gets Seventeen To Stop Photoshopping The Girls In Its Magazine

[lady_grace]

Eighth grader Julia Bluhm was tired of hearing her friends in ballet class complain about being fat, and knew that they were basing their self-conscious opinions on altered magazine images of themselves. So she started a petition asking Seventeen magazine to stop photoshopping the women in their pages. Julia asked for one unaltered image of a “

Comments

[benihime99]

I'd like to hug Julia

[iolarah]

Me too. I read Seventeen in my early teens in the early 90s, and it was not good for me at all. Good for her for speaking up!

[roseofjuly]

I did, too. I used to read Seventeen and YM and I remember having some body issues because of it. I was thin, but I still didn't look as flawless as the girls in the mags - and I was black and had braces.

[mollayyy]

The story that has been going around is a bit misleading, because Seventeen seems to be claiming that they're going to continue doing as they have been all along, and then states that they've never been altering girls' faces or bodies. At least they've acknowledged the issue, but they're ignoring the fact that they still do airbrush out "impefections" even if it doesn't qualify as altering the shape.
I have a friend who was featured in Seventeen and they did alter her shape as well as (I can't find an explanation for this) remove the mole on her face.

Not to mention this only covers the models in their magazines, right? What about the advertisements that make up 50% of their pages? Or the celebrities on the covers? Still a long way to go...

[anjak_j]

I have a friend who was featured in Seventeen and they did alter her shape as well as (I can't find an explanation for this) remove the mole on her face.

I really don't know what the deal with moles is. MLB even do this kind of thing with their player mugshots. I'd really like to know if you ever find out.

Edit: grammar fail.

[bnmc2005]

I was just going to ask this. The *perfect (usually pale) skin* thing can be just as harmful to teens as body image, can't it?

[mollayyy]

Absolutely. Especially with common issue over the fact that magazines are keen on featuring women of color who "look" white, or who lighten them up (this happens a lot with Beyonce).

[anjak_j]

I know this is going to sound cynical but...

I'll believe it when I see it.

[iolarah]

I can understand your cynicism. The fact that they're insisting they've never altered body shapes gives me pause, as well. I want to be hopeful, but I remember how thin some of the girls in that magazine were, and it's either that they were editing the photos, or they're going out of their way to only select very slender models, at which point, they're really not representing a range of beauty anyway, shooped or not.

[miriamele]

My reaction too, tbh.

[bushy_brow]

MTE.

[lil_insanity]

I'm really glad her petition has received this much attention!

[evil_laugher]

On the editor's blog, she claims that by "pretty", she means have you ~inner beauty shine outwards~, and that it has nothing to do with physical features. A backpedal if I've ever heard one!

[kitanabychoice]

wow, that's just ridiculous. there's no amount of backtracking that can fix that. I've always hated scholarship things like that too -- they seem slanted towards people who have more opportunities to be overachievers from the jump. /bitter