Thanks to a brave 14-year-old Maine girl leading the way of a protest against altered photos in Seventeen Magazine, the company has now made a commitment to stop. Ann Shoket, top editor of Seventeen Magazine, has made promises to leave body shapes as-is, and only using Photoshop for out-of-place hair, wrinkles in the clothing, and the occasional zit. Shoket’s promises have been made known under the “Body Peace Treaty,” which also binds the company to always use healthy models despite the size of clothing.

This is a great step toward revamping the self-image thinking of teenagers, mostly concerning that of young girls, everywhere. In addition to the promises made by Ann Shoket, she and her staff have announced that if there are any images manipulated in Photoshop, that they will post the before and after images on the Seventeen Magazine’s Tumblr page to ensure the transparency of their commitments.

Julia Bluhm, the crusader, said Friday from her summer camp that she is “really excited.”
“I didn’t think it would get this big,” she exclaimed. “It’s a really great surprise for me.”
Since last Tuesday, two of Bluhm’s blogging partners from SPARK, a dedicated group of girls and women making the endless effort to end sexualization of girls in the media, have collected 15,000 signatures while targeting Teen Vogue in hopes they will make the same claims.

“I’m not saying it’s a total victory,” says Lynn Grefe, president of the National Eating Disorders Association. “Seventeen, Teen Vogue, Vogue, Cosmo, every magazine still has ads for diet products and other things that we find problematic, but in terms of the Photoshopping stuff, I believe that Ann is sincere and wants to really educate the consumer and work with the girls and show them what has been Photoshopped and how to recognize that.”

Julia Bluhm has taken a big leap of faith in changing the way that young girls are portrayed to their fellow teenagers through media. The WC News crew wishes her “good luck” and looks forward to reporting further accomplishments with other media agencies.

Filed under: Fashion