School children and teenagers should be made aware of air-brushing

Posted by Bronwen Maher on October 04, 2011 at 02:42 PM

The UK Government has just introduced an educational pack for teachers which illustrate how photographs of celebrities have had their photographs airbrushed by magazine editors, and how the resulting body images would be virtually impossible to achieve in reality.  Following this development in the UK, I have called on the Irish Government to introduce ‘lessons’ on airbrushing into Irish schools to protect children from developing low self-esteem as a result of unrealistic images shown in teen magazines.

I have previously raised this issue in the European Parliament as studies have shown that airbrushing plays a harmful role when it comes to negative body image and eating disorders. Airbrushing has a really damaging impact on people's self-esteem, and this latest development in the UK is very welcome and should be replicated here.  Today's unrealistic idea of what is beautiful means that young girls are under huge pressure.

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