Photoshop feeds into negative body issues

Daniela Perez/ Staff Writer

Photoshop has been around since the creation of advanced software and there’s an unlikely chance that you have seen an unretouched photo of Angelina Jolie on the cover of Vogue. Despite her striking features and her thin body, Jolie has been altered to fit the idealized realm of beauty. However, in the past decade, companies like Aerie, Modcloth, and Seventeen magazine have banned the use of Photoshop on models.

The fact that companies are joining this movement to ban Photoshop just goes to show how revolutionary the movement is. The reason that photoshop is so detrimental to society is the fact that it has a heavy and pernicious effect on the human brain, particularly on American women.

According to Livestrong, American women weigh an average 166.2 pounds and are 5 feet 2 inches tall. In a 2010 Center for Disease Control poll, the ethnicity of American women varied due to the large population that inhabits the U.S. However, out of those surveyed, the poll found that the average woman was heavier than her global counterparts.

There’s no debate that American women are bound to compare themselves to actresses and models that are approximately 5 feet 8 inches and weigh 120 pounds. That is a whole different spectrum as opposed to the average woman in the U.S. So, what’s the problem with Photoshop?

The problem with Photoshop is that it directly correlates with the prevalence of eating disorders in the U.S. The fact that there’s a software that can make a 120 pound supermodel appear even thinner causes the average woman to question her beauty and her weight. When a slight “tummy roll” or even a shade of cellulite is blurred off a catalogue model, they seem unreal in comparison to the reflection that women see in the mirror. In turn, this causes women to wonder and beat themselves up over their inability to reach that level of perfection.

So, with this damaging mentality, the development of eating disorders begins to creep in. For a 166 pound woman to reach 120 pounds fast, she would have to stop eating. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa, “At least one person dies as a direct result from eating disorders every 62 minutes” in the U.S. This shows that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness, even depression — although, a correlation is not unlikely.

And what’s even more troubling is that this mentality is passed on to children and adolescents. According to Time magazine, 50 percent of girls between the ages of 11 and 13 see themselves as overweight and 80 percent of all children interviewed have been on a “diet” by the time they’ve reached the fourth grade.

Photoshop doesn’t dictate whether or not the fork in your hand makes way towards your mouth. However, this software does trigger the mind into comparing yourself to unrealistic images, and this mentality has become the catalyst for eating disorders in America. Photoshop not only blurs imperfections on images, but it blurs the idea of self love, the most significant type of love.

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Photo taken from Flickr.