Photo-shopping and 'Thinsperation'

This post is more serious than what I would normally write about but it's something that has been on my mind a lot recently. 

I am a die hard fan of the Mail Online, seriously I visit it everyday, and I've noticed a pattern of articles about the presence of eating disorders and how many girls are taking it to extremes, and I wanted to see what you guys thought about it.

As a young woman I feel a lot of pressure to look a certain way and this is fuelled by what I see in magazines, on television and even amongst my peers. Our society is image obsessed and surrounded by glossy pictures of women, perfectly proportioned and not a hair out of place.

Take a look at these photos...

Gorgeous? Absolutely. Beautiful? Totally. Real? Not always.

It is near impossible to see such images and not compare ourselves to them, however, what we are being sold is not always reality. We all know about photo-shopping but sometimes I think we forget that these images have been manipulated.

What this means is that we set ourselves an impossible target and begin to risk our health to try and look like something that is not necessarily real.

Rachael Johnston, having fought anorexia herself, is campaigning to ban airbrushed images from magazines aimed at children, read more about her campaign here. 

I'm not convinced that she holds the answer to this problem but I think it's great that someone is trying to being attention to the matter.

Having dabbled in eating disorders before I know how easy it is to be taken in by these pictures and using them as 'thinsperation', but it's unhealthy and produces low self-esteem.   

Don't get me wrong, every person featured/mentioned in this blog is absolutely gorgeous and I am not suggesting that they all use or advocate photo-shopping. I just think this is an important issue. And at a time when lots of us are trying to slim down for bikini season it may be just what someone needs to hear before they take it too far.

xxxBxxx

What do you think? Do you think photo-shopping should be banned?

Follow @hummingbirdxxxB