That, at least, is what campaigners working against eating disorders insist. For years, they have complained that the waiflike, size zero models promote an unhealthy dieting culture. But digitally trimmed celebrities and models, they say, are much worse: many people don't realize what they see is neither real nor attainable.
Now the British government is taking up their cause. Next month, officials are sitting down to discuss how to curb airbrushing and promote body confidence among girls and women. If the campaigners get their way, fashion ads and magazines in Britain may soon have to label retouched photos to warn people that the perfect bodies they see are but digital fantasies.
It's the latest initiative in a long-running battle to force the fashion industry to show more diverse -- and realistic -- kinds of beauty.
"The trend does seem to be more and more extreme Photoshopping. Everybody's just moving towards Barbie dolls," said Hany Farid, a professor specializing in digital photo forensics at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. "I don't think there's a single photograph in those (magazines) that's not retouched. They're all manipulated to hell."
Editors and ad managers have been making use of technology to improve the appearance of photographed models for some time. Before, it was taming the occasional stray hair or erasing a blemish. These days there's much more extensive trickery: flabby stomachs are tightened, necks and legs are lengthened, bosoms are reshaped. The result: a flawless body shape no amount of dieting or cosmetic surgery can achieve.
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