by Ali Hutchings

Created on: January 06, 2010

The majority of women could look at themselves in a mirror and find something they’d like to tweak, smooth, tone or just plain old change. It’s the human condition to find a source of dissatisfaction in almost anything, and why should the way we look be any different?

In every area of our life we hold up what we have and measure it against something else, whether that something is the car on our friend’s driveway or the famous face on a magazine cover. There is no getting away from the fact that the grass almost always looks greener when its not your grass and you don’t have to maintain it!

Back to the car example and its clear that when you compare your 3 door hatchback with Bob next door’s people carrier what you see is pretty much what you get. You can compare engine size and boot capacity all day long, but the specifications of each car remain unchanged. You know for a fact that if you want a more powerful engine or a bigger boot then, provided you have the money, you can go out and buy yourself exactly the same things that Bob has.

Airbrushing images in magazines, on the other hand, means that rather than offering women an aspirational image to measure themselves against (after all I’m sure many of us wouldn’t turn down looking like Jennifer Anniston, even on her bad days!) the magazines are presenting us with contoured bodies, smoothed out skin and enhanced curves that the famous and beautiful themselves weren’t even able to achieve with the aid of expensive personal trainers, beauty gurus and fashion experts.

Some people may say that logic dictates that women will realise that the images they see in magazines are unrealistic and no amount of time in the gym, hairdressers, spa or, in extreme cases, the plastic surgeons will allow them to look like their airbrushed idols. However, logic rarely comes into play when we’re talking about the delicate self-image that many women have. Failing to achieve the perfect body or the clear glowing skin presented to us as the norm by many publications can shatter the already fragile self-image of some women, contributing to eating disorders, self harming and plastic surgery addictions.

Particularly reprehensible are adverts for beauty products that use airbrushing. If the product can’t achieve the results on their own merit, then surely Trading Standards should have something to say about using digital technology to fake it? Consumers are led to expect miracles and spend vast sums of money pursuing the dreams that would bolster their self-esteem and instead are unsurprisingly disappointed by their less than miraculous transformations.

UK magazine Heat has run campaigns in both 2008 and 2009 where celebrities have agreed to be photographed without any make up or styling to highlight how real people actually look – even the famous ones. And the underlying fact is that they still looked beautiful. They didn’t look perfect, but they looked real and presented a positive image that women could measure themselves against without a sense of utter hopelessness.

No one has yet put forward a convincing argument supporting the use of unrealistic airbrushing in the media. However sources speaking out against airbrushing are numerous, including a 2009 campaign against airbrushing launched by UK political party the Liberal Democrats, citing support from the National Centre for Eating Disorders, Girlguiding UK and many leading academics (from the Lib Deb website).

Experts, campaigners and even the airbrushed celebrities themselves agree that airbrushing presents unrealistic body images. When measuring against that how could any womans self-image not take a knock.

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