How a 14-year old girl got Seventeen magazine to vow not to photoshop their models.

I’m ashamed to say that the first thing my roommate and I bonded over was the issue of weight.  We both came in college terrified of gaining the dreaded “freshman 15.”  The topic of our horrible diets and how we need to work out more comes up on a daily basis (literally, every time we got ready to go out somewhere we would complain that we were starting to look more fat). Is it because we live in a society where, in every magazine, there is a beautiful women that is so perfect is almost hurts to look at them? The fact that I already know that the photographs are Photo shopped doesn't seem to register to me when I compare myself to them. All I see is the flawless skin and the perfect body of the models that I am brainwashed to believe is beautiful. Brainwashed? It's not just an adjective that you would find being used in a Baby Geniuses film. Being inadvertently told by the media that what is beautiful are the Photo shopped pictures in magazines, to me, is a form of brainwashing.  I don’t care how over dramatic that seems. This issue is such a big problem that something needs to draw more attention to it.

For this reason, Julie's story fascinated me

The 14 year old girl had the right idea when she decided to make a petition trying to get Seventeen magazine to not edit their models faces and bodies. But, like the article stated, they already had pledged not to alter models in the “Body Peace Treaty” (a fancy title that they came up with trying to prevent situations like this one from happening). Did she waste her time? No. From what I got out of the article, Julie succeeded in getting large Magazine corporations to state their views on the edited images that they put out. That, in itself, is a feat. The media uproar even got Teen Vogue to commit their company to the “Body Peace Treaty”, as well.

Personally though, I don't see a huge change ever happening in the fashion industry (that is not just mu pessimistic outlook on life kicking in). For years, the topics of photo altering and models being too skinny have been under fire by multitudes of people. Yet, not much has changed. We need to focus more on making sure that young girls are aware that what makes you beautiful is who you are on the inside.

 lhttp://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/us/seventeen-photoshopping/index.html