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Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

bbc.co.uk

131–140 of 184 posts

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#131

In the United States, Obesity is one of the leading causes of death, with estimates as high as 300,000 deaths/year. (See https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html ) Deaths from Anorexia are about 150/year (See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11513012 ) Yet we're all hypersensitive about telling women they are overweight or obese. It would be like spending weeks in urban schools talking about how to avoid poison…

You talk about these like they are two distinct problems, but they're closely related. Unhealthy body image drives a lot of unhealthy food behaviors and weight gain [1]. That negative body image is driven by many things, including fashion culture promoting atypical or fictional bodies [2][3]. It is also driven by a culture of fat shaming. [4] So if you are really serious about reducing harm from obesity, promoting mo…

I don't think the first link really provides any real insight into the problem. First of all, the study isn't experimental. There could easily be many confounding variables here, such as depression causing more body satisfaction issues. Another issue could be that overweight people with low body satisfaction are less satisfied because they have been warned more about it (chicken-and-egg); for example, if a child had a binge eating disorder to begin with, their parents/doctors/friends would intervene more to try to stop them from gaining so much weight. The study also doesn't clearly define how the survey worked, and the study referenced for the survey didn't explain much either [1]. It doesn't seem like there's any measure of whether low body satisfaction means weight is too high/weight is too low (I think there's some nuance to this, for example someone desiring larger breasts may want to gain weight even if they see themselves as fat, and there's a big difference here based on culture). Finally, keep in mind the jump back to weight gain with "Very high body satisfaction". These are separated into 4 groups (apparently by quartile, although clearly every group is a different size just by looking at the chart), but this information could reveal a sharp spike as you get to the top 1% or something. Also, look at the difference in size between the 4 groups, the first is 4x larger than the last, which seems really strange.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3140795/#R27

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#132
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The implication of this article is that agencies would be obligated to use what the article calls "more obtainable" bodies. Is this actually the case? I think it's vastly more likely that this will do little more than sharply increase the demand for people that actually have the bodies that other individuals were being photoshopped to have. You could always insist that the distribution of bodies shown in a magazine…

> You could always insist that the distribution of bodies shown in a magazine follows the distribution of weights/heights in the general population (with some margin of error). And heavily fine them out of business when it does not. Problem solved. That magazine will go out of business. No one remembers how much of a flop Dove's products endured when it tried to advertise them with real bodies?

Huh, I thought that Dove campaign was effective... seems like it was:

http://adage.com/article/news/ten-years-dove-s-real-beauty-a...

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#133
post #33
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well it's not a secret, but it's not obvious for most teenagers. Fair enough but the list of things that can harm a teen's self esteem is endless. So in a way there is no way around learning how to deal with issues of imperfection on a personal level. And this, in turn, makes you wonder whether you couldn't spend the money that goes into this project more worthwhile. For instance, you could invest it in free sport…

> Fair enough but the list of things that can harm a teen's self esteem is endless. Many things are endless or numerous, that's why people prioritize dealing with a) the most important ones, b) low hanging fruits.

of course, it’s not clear that there’s an actual, rational reason to believe this will have any positive effect, so it’s probably option c) must be seen to try something

if they could eludicate the mechanism that has this impact, they would likely also have evidence that violent video games cause male violence, or that bowser kidnapping princess peach causes sexism.

my guess is the operative pressure arises from peer groups, and this initiative is pissing in the wind

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#135
I can't find the actual article, but i was reading that the rise of instagram or just selfie cameras has lead to an increased amount of face surgery.

Just the fact that people spend all their days looking at the imperfections of their own body and compare it to perfect ones(the photoshoped) will lead to surgery.

I think adding a photoshoped disclaimer is a step up, but it is not the ultimate solution. At some point we will end up with a mandatory 200by200 picture of a failed surgery plastered on every doctored photo.

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#136

The implication of this article is that agencies would be obligated to use what the article calls "more obtainable" bodies. Is this actually the case? I think it's vastly more likely that this will do little more than sharply increase the demand for people that actually have the bodies that other individuals were being photoshopped to have. It'd be like if a country banned all voice processing software when singing (…

>It'd be like if a country banned all voice processing software when singing (which has become ubiquitous today).

I actually don't get it and don't give and fcuk if voice was tuned or real. I like [subjectively] good music, and find bans on some techniques of sound production as weirdo club decisions. Let's ban electric guitars, synthesizers and much more just because one can't play the same tunes on a violin.

Of course there are contests where bare voice is evaluated, but these are not the only way to sing a song or make the music. If people don't like tuning anyway, then why ban? If they do, then what the hell?

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#137
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet we're all hypersensitive about telling women they are overweight or obese So you think the problem lies in obese people being unaware of how much they weigh?

Seems like a facetious over-simplification of what the poster said. If it's hard (socially) to approach something, because people are hyper-sensitive, then it's simply hard to help those people. In a lot of Western culture it generally seems accepted to tell people they're too skinny, but not to tell people they're too fat—obviously I don't just mean walking down a street and saying this to a stranger, but in appropr…

You're right. I wrote the comment without having read the article, which is why I wasn't able to put it in context. After having read the article, I agree, I think he makes a good point.

Although I still think telling a person that you consider he or she to be either overweight or skinny is quite meaningless. If they ask you for your opinion, it makes sense to answer, but I have a really hard time believing that an over/underweight person wouldn't have noticed this already while looking in the mirror.

It's a bit like telling a cigarette smoker that smoking is unhealthy and that they should quit. The chance that they didn't know this already is practically zero, which means you're not offering any help.

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could always insist that the distribution of bodies shown in a magazine follows the distribution of weights/heights in the general population (with some margin of error). And heavily fine them out of business when it does not. Problem solved. That sounds like an infringement on the freedom of speech, in countries where it applies. It also seems ridiculously difficult to judge and enforce. The government would n…

But is it really fair that surgeons or NFL players don't match societal distributions for their respective traits? Think about how this makes all of the low-dexterity, low-coordination little boys and girls feel. For the sake of feelings, I demand mandatory mediocrity for every profession. Anyone trying to be exceptional should be hampered accordingly.

You're comparing advertisement to skill based jobs...

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#139

The implication of this article is that agencies would be obligated to use what the article calls "more obtainable" bodies. Is this actually the case? I think it's vastly more likely that this will do little more than sharply increase the demand for people that actually have the bodies that other individuals were being photoshopped to have. It'd be like if a country banned all voice processing software when singing (…

Bogdanovich retells the story in his spot on Cary Grant impression, explaining that when they approached the ticket taker Grant said, "I'm terribly sorry, I forgot my ticket. May I get in please?" As the ticket taker was looking for his name, Grant says, "It's Cary Grant." "You don't look like Cary Grant," said the ticket taker. And Bogdanovich remembers that Grant, "as quick as wink" said, "I know, nobody does."

Nobody meets the bar, it's been raised so high.

Re: Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

#140

My mother and wife were both photographers at some point and basically every photo is modified, touched up, and otherwise "enhanced" in Photoshop or other tools. It doesn't matter if it's a landscape, a room setting, or a person. While saying "this has been modified" might be valuable, without knowing how this seems misguided at best.

It's not even fair to say they have been modified or touched up, really. Cameras are not true to life. The bare data (straight out of camera) does not look just like what you see with your eyes, and occasionally the photographer also made a minor technical error, leading to a crop or an exposure adjustment or white balance change or...
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