Airbrushed images of celebrities!

Ok, this is how I see my weight loss journey/quest/thingy. YMMV, so let's talk about it.

I am not destined to be fat/obese/$word. Because of my height, sex and frame there is a healthy weight out there with my name on it. This is not about me starving myself, working out until I drop from exhaustion, or expending unhealthy amounts of energy on an unattainable and sick ideal.

It's about becoming the woman I am meant to be. It's about the best and most fulfilling kind of honesty; being truthful to the person underneath all my layers and walls and barriers and whatever.

It is NOT about LYING. That's perhaps what really narks me about these photos and this detestable practice in general. They're filthy lies. Filthier than dirty nappies, worse than dirty nappies in fact, because dirty nappies, whilst unpleasant, are at least a sign of something healthy (at least most of the time...but I digress).

I don't know about anyone else here, but at least some of my issues come from teenage years looking at magazines adorned with girls who were five foot slimmer than me. Knowing that even those photos are lies....ARRRRGH. It makes me SO CROSS. It's hard enough for me to really learn about the kind of person I am without the media raising the bar impossibly high when it comes to looks.

Well, if one is expecting that advertisements tell the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth, then yeah, somebody's in for a big disappointment!

But doesn't everyone know that advertising is nothing but lies and hype? That no one looks that good, that a car doesn't make you successful and sexy, that a big screen TV doesn't make your life work better? Don't we all really know that people who eat huge plates of pasta, monstrous pizzas, and obscenely sized hamburgers in fashionable restaurants don't stay young and slim?

Does anyone really think that they have to look like an airbrushed photo to be loved? And would one really want to be loved by someone who is looking for an airbrushed photo?

I think part of growing up/older is realizing that a huge amount of manipulation is going on, and learning to step away from it. Congratulations on getting mad about it! You're on your way to freedom.

Jay

I can understand smoothing out the jeans- but seriously slimming her body? LIKE SHE NEEDED IT?!

*faint*

I stopped looking at ads a LONG time ago...

And the fact that americans keep feeding into it is bad... People, in a way, want to see the perfect airbrushed woman. Because if she had lumpy thighs, a double chin, or wrinkles..... they would be pointed out, and ridiculed.

Advertisers have been manipulating photos longer than Photoshop has been available (although Photoshop definitely makes the manipulation easier and more accessible to many).

That retouched photo of Valentina Zelyaeva is rather alarming. Is our perception of the female form that skewed? You couldn't even fit a normal pelvis into that set of hips, and it actually makes her look deformed.

Something we all have to keep in mind though is that none of these advertisers are out to be role models, they're there to sell a product, pure and simple. And if they think pushing a normal, healthy, human body into something nearly unrecognizable from reality in order to do that . . . well, that's what they're gonna do.

Luckily we don't have to buy into any of it.

Amen, sister.

Jay - maybe this just says a lot about my own upbringing, but no-one told me that the world of advertising wasn't real. No-one. I read about models who were half the width of lampposts who ate McDonald's for breakfast, lunch and dinner and weighed two and a half stone. I once told my mother that she should use a certain laundry detergent because I'd just seen the tv ad: she ignored me.

I don't think (but I could be wrong) that people do in fact know that it's just a load of codswallop.

We all have to remember that what we see on TV and on Magazine covers is NOT the reality. Nobody is perfect. Even the most beautiful people get air brushed. Just find the body you are most comfortable in and keep in mind it will probably never be "perfect" and that is OK.

I've gotta say that I don't think advertisements actually affected me much as a kid, my issues were with my peers. Not that I didn't want to look like those unattainable models, but it was really hard being the chunky junior high student constantly being force-fed diet food while my peers gorged on chips, soda, and candy bars without having to worry about their figures for even one moment (or so it appeared to me at the time).

Then on to high school, where I became obese and constantly worried about dieting while watching my peers sprout gorgeous hourglass figures, all the while watching them eat pizza and fries for lunch every day in the school cafeteria. I still wonder if it's caught up with them or if they actually have to watch what they eat now like I do . . .

While what we see in the advertisement industry sucks, parents should really take the time to explain what's realistic and what isn't. And as adults, we should not choose to support any company that advertises in a way we do not feel comfortable with; not that I can even fit into any Ralph Lauren products now, but once I do I certainly won't be buying any.

I think those ads are downright ridiculous. And today, most people (some, though not enough) realize that they're - fake. I don't get the point of them.

But I don't let them get to me. Maybe it is an age thing, me being 45 and all.

It would certainly be nice to see "real women" in ads, much more realistic and I think it would make the items seem more attainable and buy-able to us every day folk. But that's just me. Maybe it's an age thing, me being 45 and all.

I think a lot of adult women are not fooled by the ads - but it still would be nice to see reality, or something not completely alien to it.

But ... I do think this has a strong, horrid effect on teen and especially pre-teen girls.

I think that sometimes even those of us here in this forum have a somewhat skewed view. Recently, there were several threads about how "brave" it was of a real woman to pose in a magazine because of her imperfect figure. I browsed to the picture, and did I see someone who looks like any of us here in this forum? Nope. I saw a really, really slim, incredibly beautiful woman who had a teeny-tiny smidgeon of extra skin at her middle. And she was being lauded in the article for being so BRAVE to pose for a picture.

To me, even that was unrealistic because most women don't even look like her. Most of us (and I'm kind of guessing, because I don't see lots of normal naked ladies) have droopy boobs and at least a little flab on our thighs, and maybe some loose skin hanging off our upper arms. We've got moles and scars and funny looking toes or knees. So yeah, I didn't see anything incredibly brave about a lovely young blonde woman with a teeny tiny bit of extra skin on her tummy posing nude. I will be impressed when magazines start showing un-altered photos of women who look like me, with big saggy boobs and fat bottoms. THEN I'll talk about how brave the model is!