Britain's Advertising Standards Authority has pulled a pair of ads featuring Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington for being overly-airbrushed:

"We should have some honesty in advertising and that's exactly what the ASA is there to do. I'm delighted they've upheld these complaints," she said.
"There's a big picture here which is half of young women between 16 and 21 say they would consider cosmetic surgery and we've seen eating disorders more than double in the last 15 years.

"There's a problem out there with body image and confidence. The way excessive retouching has become pervasive in our society is contributing to that problem."

Researchers also noted that the age when patients began having eating disorders were “markedly younger” than in previous estimates. The median age for the onset of anorexia, bulimia, binge eating and other eating disorders was 12.

Nearly all the teens with anorexia reported social impairment, affecting their social and family relationships. They also reported having had a day when they were unable to carry out normal activities. Teenagers who have had eating disorders were also more likely to idealize suicides.

These behaviors can leave long-lasting effects. Many of the young patients aren’t getting the treatment they need to break the destructive cycle.

“While most adolescents with eating disorders received some form of treatment, only a minority of affected individuals received services specifically for eating or weight problems,” wrote the authors.

The stress of eating disorders has "been repeatedly demonstrated through elevated rates of role impairment, medical complications, comorbidity, mortality, and suicide."

-excerpt from cnn

be aware

According to the National Association of Anorexia and Associated Disorders, while seven to ten million women suffer from eating disorders, nearly one million men suffer from eating disorders in the United States as well.

by tom matlack for HP.

Most of the guys I know are unfulfilled, looking at pictures of women they will never meet (moreover, these women don't actually, technically, exist). They prefer making love with a woman who stirs their passions on more than one level. But we have been conditioned like so many Pavlovian dogs.

Yes, good men love women. But we love women in all their complexity -- for the things they do, for their intelligence, their wit, their athleticism, their creativity, their power and their force of personality. We seem to have forgotten that along the way. Our brain-numbing intoxication by pornography in all its forms threatens to end us -- not because it is morally wrong, but just because it distracts us from the truth and scatters our power. It's one big acid trip fantasy with no connection to improving our lives, being good fathers and husbands and advancing our careers.

The models I have met in the flesh have all turned out to be quite unattractive. When a supposedly beautiful woman opens her mouth and soulless, empty nonsense tumbles out, the perfect 10 becomes a two in a big hurry. No amount of cleavage can make up for the lack of soul.

does professional cheerleading or dance (a la lakers girls or dallas cowboy cheerleaders) take a certain degree of athleticism and hard work? of course. but when the cameraman shoots a blond cheerleader in booty shorts and push up bra right before the station goes to commercial, it ain't because he's trying to capture her athleticism.

i experience a very distinct sadness for women and dignity in general each year the miss america pageant comes around.

apart from the obligatory requests for world peace, requirement for aggressive veneers and the apparent return of the bedazzled pantsuit, there's idea that we continually, as a society, just say, screw it- judging women by their looks is valid.

take, for example, the runner up, whose talent was ventriloyodeling. i am not kidding. a ventriloquist. who ventrilo-yodels. i couldn't make that up.

and the winner. oh, the winner. whose particularly insightful response to a question about national security boiled down do "the main focus of national security should be security."

no, i didn't watch the pageant. but people are talking about it and showing clips from it today. sadly, it continues to be as vapid and stereotypical as always.

thanks america.

this is absolutely important. there is so much i could say on this topic, but i will leave that for another post.