Unattainable Beauty: Harmful or Harmless Fantasy?

It’s about time.

Someone finally has not only addressed the issue of impossible standards of beauty set forth by fashion magazines -- we’ve heard talk of this before -- but someone is actually doing something about it.
According to the May 28th issue of the New York Times, glam photographer and “image-maker” Peter Lindbergh has brought this discussion to the forefront by creating several covers for the French version of Elle magazine. They feature models sans makeup and Photoshop magic.

“My feeling is that for years now (photo manipulation) has taken a much too big part in how women are being visually defined today,” Lindbergh wrote in an email to the Times’ reporter. “Heartless retouching should not be the chosen tool to represent women in the beginning of this century.”

Mr. Lindbergh, I salute you.

This issue is of concern to health professionals. Fostering the idea that there are actually some women with flawless skin, perfect facial features, sculpted bodies and wafer-thin waistlines is in great part responsible for the proliferation of eating disorders and depression among between five and 10 million people in the United States.

Ninety percent of these are women.

Other statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health paint a sad picture. Its estimates suggest that:
• Each day, Americans spend an average of $109 million on dieting and diet related products.
• As many as 15 percent of young women adopt unhealthy attitudes and behaviors about food.
• An estimated 10 per cent of female college students suffer from a clinical or borderline eating disorder; half of these suffer from bulimia.
• An estimated one in 100 American women binges and purges to lose weight.
• Approximately 1 percent of men have anorexia nervosa, bulimia or binge-eating disorder.
• An estimated one-third of all dieters develop compulsive dieting attitudes and behaviors.Of these, about one-fourth will develop full or partial eating disorders.
• Estimates suggest that as many as 10 percent to 15 percent of eating disorders are fatal.
• In a study of children aged 8-10, approximately 50 per cent of girls said they were unhappy with their size.

To France’s credit, health officials there have been pushing for a law mandating that magazines tell readers when and how they have altered photos of models.

“But editors of American publications, who last year resisted such a proposal within their trade group, the American Society of Magazine Editors, have also noted a backlash against images that appear manipulated to push an idealized standard of beauty,” the Times article said.

Do you agree with the stance of photographer Peter Lindbergh – that fashion and glam magazines have a responsibility to disclose to readers what they’ve done to alter photos?

Or do you think the mission of fashion and glamour magazines is to create a fantasy and that this is essentially harmless?

Is it important for nurses to be aware of the influence of fashion/glam/women’s magazines?

Tell us what you think.