I originally wrote about the young lady, Julia Bluhm, on May 3rd. She organized a protest and photo shoot outside of Seventeen Magazine’s office. She was concerned with the body image of other young ladies. The pictures of teenage girls in Seventeen were photoshopped. Julia asked that Seventeen Magazine included one unaltered photo spread in each month’s edition.
This message resonated with thousands of individuals. Numerous people signed their name to the online petition. This message was received by Seventeen Magazine and they took it another step further. Below is a quote from the updated article on Change.org.
We’re really excited, because Seventeen didn’t just promise one un-photoshopped spread a month, they went even further by promising not to change the faces or body size of their models, to listen to readers’ feedback and to celebrate beauty in all of its diverse shapes, sizes and colors.
This is huge; the beginning of a revolution in the way girls see themselves across the girls’ magazine industry. That’s why we’re now asking Teen Vogue to do the same. (Change.org)
Julia has not given up her pursuit of changing magazines to help improve the body image of adolescent girls. She has now changed her focus to Teen Vogue. She asked them to follow suit with Seventeen. If you are interested in helping Julia’s, you can sign her petition on Change.org.
This year, Vogue pledged to not work with underage models or models who appear to have eating disorders and to encourage their designers to provide more realistically sized samples for models’ outfits. This is a great first step, but now we’re asking Teen Vogue to take a bigger leap.
Teen Vogue: Follow Seventeen’s example and pledge not to alter any model’s body or face and to celebrate beauty in all its forms.
It’s time for an end to the digitally enhanced, unrealistic “beauty” we see in the pages of magazines. We are demanding that teen magazines stop altering natural bodies and faces so that real girls can be the new standard of beauty.
