Beauty through the eye of a camera

Isabelle Caro, a 27-year-old French woman, has battled anorexia for 15 years. (image courtesy Nolita)

In April, Paris drafted a voluntary charter encouraging advertisers to promote a wider range of body types in an effort to curb the spread of eating disorders among teenagers. Soon, Quebec may be following suit. Although some countries have made weight ranges mandatory, such as Spain, this voluntary measure is a first step that does not preclude the possibility of legislation passing in the future. See the full story here.

Here in Canada we’ve already seen some advertisers looking to promote a wider range body types. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a conspicuous one that has received much attention. Largely, I think, this is due to the shock value that half-naked non-models on billboards will inevitably provide in a culture where images of bodies in public are edited beyond recognition.

In a recent advertising effort, Dove shows a model going through the process of being made suitable for public consumption. It’s a really revealing example of how drastically faces are altered, and offers part of the explanation for why many women’s self image is so skewed (and perhaps might be of interest to Darkest Night’s observation here). Comparing yourself to a computer generated image will always leave you falling short. Check it out the ad here. Also, for the younger folks in you life, there’s a quiz followed by a video here testing your ability to tell altered from unaltered photos. I won’t lie, I failed… I guess I spend too much time looking at magazines.