CAN’T COMPETE WITH PHOTOSHOP!

I am re-posting this video I ran across on SarahFit.com. I actually put it on Faacebook and have loved the feedback and comments. I think it is a great reminder that what you see is not always “the real thing”! This is a fake TV commercial made to look like a beauty ad, complete with ways to make our skin look younger and more radiant, our lips fuller, our hips and thighs smaller, eyes brighter, teeth whiter. . . .you get the picture.  Of course, the answer is not with diet, exercise, beauty products or even make-up – it’s by Photoshop!  Any photograph can be changed and manipulated to look any way, but real.  Even with hours of hair, make-up, and celebrity trainers, nutritionists and diets, the photos of celebrity women in magazines are still photoshopped to make them look impossibly perfect.

Sarah from Sarahfit.com had already done a great did a great video where she had a photographer take her photos and show her how the photos would be photoshopped and digitally changed before they would be printed.  It was a great article and very enlightening.  Women have such issues with body image   – and no wonder since we are constantly bombarded with magazines, commercials, ads and photos of women portrayed to look absolutely perfect, when, in fact, they are just like the rest of us.  They merely have all of their photos digitally manipulated.  

Jennifer Hudson recently gave an interview and discussed her struggle with her weight and the fickleness of the entertainment industry in wanting her to lose weight for her career and then gain weight for a particular movie role or appearance.  She admitted that her first Album/CD cover was photoshopped to make her appear thinner than she actually was.  She said this was done without her knowledge and she did not see the photograph until after it was released.  She was disappointed in the change made to her body in the photo as she knew her audience would know it was not a true portrayal of her.  She knew this was the wrong  message to send. 

So, when did things get so crazy that women are not allowed to be normal, healthy and beautiful as they are?  When and why did we begin to expect impossible images as acceptable?  It is hard enough for  me in my 40’s to remember that a photo I see is not “real”.  I cannot compare myself to these images.  It’s also one of the reasons I’m thankful I do not have daughters to teach how to navigate the  misleading appearances forced upon them by the entertainment industy.  

Isn’t this just crazy?  Do you think the pendulum  will swing back to