Picking up a magazine can evoke strong insecurities from female readers. It is now hard for an individual to flip through one and not see pictures of women photoshopped to the point of looking unrealistic.
Viewing such images creates impossible expectations of what a woman’s body should resemble.
Since perception is reality, constantly viewing pictures of unnaturally perfect women encourages individuals to believe that these images are real.
Self-esteem is built through many different factors, including self-image. The photoshopped woman is detrimental to a woman’s self-esteem because an average woman does not look like the altered women continually shown in today’s popular magazines.
After looking at photoshopped pictures in magazines, it is only natural that a woman will compare herself to these pictures and wonder why she does not look the same.
According to a study of 185 female college students by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders Inc., 58 percent of the respondents felt pressured to maintain a certain weight. Of the 83 percent who had dieted, nearly half
(44 percent) were already at a normal weight.
With these saddening and disturbing statistics, the obsession with photoshopping and these health issues correlate with one another.
Excessive photoshopping is not only unhealthy for women but men as well. Women are not the only ones affected by fictional images.
Magazines such as the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue have models scantily clad in bathing suits that are also altered by Photoshop.
Men who view the magazines desire these fantasy women who do not exist but rather have been created by some of the best photographers and editors in the world. Professional models featured in these magazines are paid for their bodies and are still altered by Photoshop.
If these professional models are unable to live up to these standards, who on earth can?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No matter how many photoshopped women the media throws at us, the truth is beauty comes in all shapes and forms.
As women and men, we must change our way of thinking and rewire our brains from what the media constantly tells us a perfect body consists of.
We must keep in mind Psalms 139:14, which says we are all fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God.
