Dec 5

Written by: Selah House
12/5/2011 1:21 PM 

Many Call for Warning System for Altered, Misleading Photos

In June of 2011, the American Medical Association called for standards in the altering of photos printed in magazines and used in media. They indicated that exposing people, especially children to advertisements portraying models with body types only attainable with the help of photo editing software is damaging and can lead to poor body image and eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. Many have recommended the use of warnings on these altered photos so that people know when the photo they are viewing is altered and therefore unrealistic.

There is an interesting article on dailymail.com surrounding this issue. Two computer scientists have been working on a scientific approach to this warning system by giving an easily understood numeric rating as to how much altering has taken place with a particular image. This would help people register in their own minds how unrealistic the image is and bring consistent standards to the warnings system.

Here is an excerpt from the article: 

“‘Impossibly thin, tall, and wrinkle-and blemish-free models are routinely splashed into billboards, advertisements, and magazine covers,’ Professor Hany Farid, the man behind the project wrote. He and Eric Kee, from Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, listed the troubling side-effects of altered images as a primary motivation of the project to provide consumers with more information on Photoshopped images. ‘The ubiquity of these unrealistic and highly idealized images has been linked to eating disorders and body-image dissatisfaction in men, women, and children,’ they said.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067474/Back-reality-Computer-program-shows-EXACTLY-images-magazine-photoshopped.html#ixzz1ffhiQcOo