After flipping through Vogue this weekend, I noticed that almost every model had almost exactly the same body type.  Stick skinny legs with thigh gaps, concaved stomachs, impossible curves for a girl that thin and overly perfect skin.

Many girls ask themselves, “Am I supposed to look like that?”  And the answer is no, because the girls in these magazines are anything but real.  These photo-shopped images of unrealistic beauty contribute to girls’ eating disorders, body shame, and lack of self-esteem and ambition.

This article is not to just expose the amount of photo-shop magazines use as a way to completely change what a model looks like, but to also question why exactly we only use photos of girls with fourteen year old body types instead of showing the diversity in women’s bodies.

The average weight of a woman in the United States is 164 pounds and a pant size of 12.  However, the average weight of a model is 118 pounds, and a height of 5’11.  Most of these models meet the body mass index criteria for anorexia.

What I don’t understand is why only one body type is represented, and why women with pant sizes 4-14 is considered “plus size” model, and why someone who is too thin and sickly looking is considered the “ideal” body type.

For some reason, many companies refuse to show different body types, making many girls feel that in order to be “beautiful,” they have to look like the models in the magazine.  The problem: the models do not even look like the models in the magazine.

As you can see from these photos, none of the people have the same looking face, or body, after extreme retouching and Photoshop.  This is the major problem with media, the true fakeness of it all that so many people fail to realize.

Why can’t women, and men, embrace their bodies whether they are thin, average size, curvy, large, muscular, tan, white, dark skinned, we are all beautiful the way we are why can’t we embrace it?

So I say let’s stand up against this unrealistic portrayal of men and women.  Stop buying magazines with photo shopped pictures of models, do not shop from Victoria’s Secret; a company that promotes anorexia in its models.  Former Victoria’s Secret model, Kylie Busitti, claims, “There was intense pressure on me and many models around me to be incredibly thin. I went as far as doing crazy crash diets to lose the weight after my agency called me fat and told me that I needed to lose weight off of my thighs and hips. I did very unhealthy things to lose the weight, but I was told if I didn’t do it I wouldn’t book jobs and become successful.”

Learn to love your body and embrace it! And do what you can to exploit the media industry and rise against it.