Models Are Airbrushed – You Look Normal (And Great)

The internet has been abuzz this week with talk of Lizzie Miller. If you’ve not read the news stories (and seen the now-famous picture), Lizzie is a 20-year old model with a BMI of 24.4 – ie. normal and healthy.

And she has a small roll of stomach fat – something which magazines would typically airbrush out.

The small photo of Lizzie, on page 194 of this month’s US Glamour magazine, saw an deluge of positive emails to Glamour’s editor, from women hugely relieved to finally see someone in a magazine who looked like them.

It’s also reopened discussions about how the media affects our body image, and how airbrushing is commonly far more extensive than we readers realise.

Body Image and the Media

When all the “attractive” women in television programs and in movies are size 4 or 6, and when magazines are full of underweight models, it’s almost inevitable that we end up thinking “I should look like that.”

If you’re health-conscious and on a diet, you’re probably even more susceptible to this type of thinking. It’s easy (and dangerous) to start equating skinniness with health – whereas research shows that it’s actually healthier to be slightly overweight (BMI 25 – 30) than underweight (BMI under 18.5).

The amazing amount of interest in response to Lizzie Miller’s photo in Glamour magazine shows how we, and the media, have lost touch with what normal, healthy, women look like. This is due to our constant exposure to a very narrow ideal of beauty:

Constant exposure to idealised images of female beauty on TV, magazines and billboards makes exceptional good looks seem normal and anything short of perfection seem abnormal and ugly. It has been estimated that young women now see more images of outstandingly beautiful women in one day than our mothers saw throughout their entire adolescence. (Mirror, Mirror – A summary of research findings on body image)
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Women’s responses to the photo of Lizzie demonstrated how refreshing it is to see someone who “looks like us” in a glossy magazine:

You look at her face and see how happy she is, and it’s really beautiful – and that’s how I’d look if I was sat in the same position she is! (Lisa Broughton, quoted in Wales Online)
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So why don’t we see normal people in magazines every day? Many media analysts believe that big c companies promote thin, airbrushed models as a means to make us buy more:

By presenting an ideal difficult to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and profits. (Beauty and Body image in the Media)
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Think about it: have you ever bought makeup or a particular “diet” product because you secretly hoped it would make you look more like the model on the packaging? Have you ever felt bad about yourself after watching a TV series full of thin actresses, or after flicking through a celebrity magazine?

Airbrushing

People in the fashion industry know how endemic airbrushing is. Models are not free of blemishes, spots, freckles, stretch-marks … but photo editors can make them look that way.

If you want a dramatic example of what airbrushing can do, take a look at this photo (roll your mouse over it to see the real photo before all the digital manipulation). The digital artist involved explains in the caption that “I know, it doesn’t seem natural to take out every curve, to airbrush out every blemish, but what the Art Director wants, the Art Director will get.”

Bear in mind that airbrushing can be used, and is used, for all sorts of alterations including:

• Removing stretch marks and cellulite
• Making models look slimmer
• Increasing the size of model’s breasts (Kiera Knightly complained about this being done to her image)
• Removing folds of fat, eg. under the arms

In the UK, where I live, one political party is calling for airbrushing to be banned in advertisements aimed at the under-16s, fearing that teenagers are even more susceptible than adults to trying to live up to a non-existent “perfect” image. It’s not just girls who are affected either – lads mags are causing teenage boys to fret about achieving unrealistic looks.

If you’ve ever looked at photos in a magazine and thought “I’ll never look like that” – you’re right. No-one really looks like that: it’s all to do with clever lighting and image manipulation.

Normal, healthy, happy women have bodies like Lizzie Miller’s. Celebrate your own body today: whether you’re at your target weight or still have a way to go, you’ve got loads of beautiful features.

Written by Ali Hale

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