Who wouldn’t like a body like a Victoria’s Secret model? A flat stomach, great boobs and flawless skin are top of most girls’ body wish-lists. But it turns out that even VS models can’t achieve the perfect body – not without the help of air brushing, anyway.
Pictures revealed by Jezebel.com show the extent to which Doutzen Kroes has been airbrushed for the VS swimsuit campaign. Whist we’ve all become used to the odd airbrushing of lines and wobbles on models in magazines, these pictures show just how much pictures are manipulated for public consumption.
Doutzen is already absolutely gorgeous, which makes us wonder why the images have been altered so much. The folds of skin around her waist and armpit have been removed to create a Barbie-smooth body. Although airbrushing is now expected in a big fashion shoot, this level of alteration should be a concern to girls everywhere. Victoria’s Secret are effectively putting images of body perfection into women’s heads that aren’t attainable. The girls subjecting themselves to punishing gym regimes to get a body like Doutzen’s probably don’t realise that despite all of her working-out she doesn’t even have that body!
This image is equally worrying in terms of the extent of manipulation going on in the photo:
If Doutzen needs bikini straps to give her a gorgeous bust then the rest of us will too! Yet the straps are airbrushed out in the final picture, giving the impression that a strapless bikini and a great body are all that is needed to achieve the look. So when comparing ourselves to the images we see around us (who doesn’t?!) we don’t have a fair comparison to make. We probably don’t realise how damaging it is to be surrounded by images of perfect bodies all day every day, but it is infinitely worse if we don’t realise how heavily the images have been altered. Every girl who is negative about herself because she doesn’t look as good as Doutzen on the beach should realise that no one looks that good! However, it is worrying that in an interview about how girls can feel confident in a bikini Doutzen’s advice was to buy the right bikini and work out. No matter how much a girl works out she would never look like the girls in the VS adverts. Furthermore, she would never achieve the kind of bust or body that the VS bikini supposedly gives, because the straps providing the push-up were removed post-production. All these little alterations add up to serious body insecurities in a lot of girls today.Victoria’s Secret are by no means the only ones doing this sort of thing, but these photos show the seriousness of the issue we face today.
The problem is that we’ve all become so used to images being airbrushed in the media that no line has been drawn in the sand to say how much we will put up with. When did it become acceptable to erase the womanly folds and curves on a body? When did we become so opposed to seeing a jiggle or a wobble in the place of a taut tummy? These are the questions we need to be asking ourselves as well as the media. Such heavily altered images as the ones here should come with a warning so that vulnerable girls know these body types are impossible to achieve. But at the same time, we should stop idolising what is sold as perfection and realise that we are all, in our own way, perfect. Maybe acceptance should start with ourselves: we need to love who we are, rather than hate ourselves for what we can never be.
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