Unattainable Beauty

Newsweek has put together a photo gallery of “The decade’s most egregious retouching scandals,” complete with detail notes.  The short summary on the title page should be enough to cause us to catch our breath and remember who we are – the people who create and sustain this phenomenon of “valuing the physically unattainable.”  Be sure to make it all the way to the “plus-size” (a mere size 12!) model who notes that extra is often airbrushed on to her body (to make normal women feel even worse about themselves when buying these clothes?).

In a related survey reported by Reuters this week about Girl Scouts of the USA, 80% of teen girls say they’d rather see real images of models than airbrushed ones, and 9 out of 10 say they feel pressured to be skinny (no surprise there) and that there’s an unattainable image of beauty that has been created by the fashion and media industries.

Every youth worker and every parent of teenagers can use these pictures and findings to talk with kids about beauty, image, and what’s real.  Let’s take advantage of what these journalists have put together in our small groups and conversations with kids this week. This is a story that needs to be told.

And we’d love to hear your ideas – how do you teach kids to live in and accept their bodies in the face of industry-standard processed beauty?

©2010 Fuller Youth Institute