We all know that magazines and other forms of media photoshop their models to look smaller, but you may not realise the extent to which they do this. Size differences similar to the one I created in the picture below are very common, but there are often even larger differences...

The beautiful Zendaya Coleman, star of Shake It Up and K.C. Undercover, recently called out a magazine for photoshopping her thinner and more tan, releasing the original photo for comparison. The difference between the two pictures was huge, and she pointed out that this kind of image alteration hurts those who see it, as it sets a standard for what people should look like that is unhealthy and simply unreal!

When reading magazines or watching movies, it's important to remember that the things we see are not always real. Shape, size, hair, skin, eyes... everything can be changed with a few clicks of a mouse button, and it can look so real that it's almost believable!

The sad thing is, there was nothing wrong with how those models and celebrities looked before their image was altered. The editor of the image takes their own personal idea of what "beauty" is, and applies it to another person. Why should their definition of beauty be more important than what we see when we look in the mirror?

Remember dolls, what you see is not always the truth. In real life, the beautiful people you see in magazine ads are not that unlike you or me- we are all beautiful in our own ways!

Do you recognise a photoshopped image when you see it?