'Schoolgirl's protest against magazine airbrushing is a success as Seventeen vows never to alter models' bodies again'

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A recent article by the daily mail explains how a 14 year old girl named Julia Bluhm had collected 84,000 signatures against the airbrushing and editing of models in magazines. The girl had staged a protest against Seventeen Magazines use of Photoshop to alter and airbrush its models. The editor-in-chief of seventeen, Ann Shoket, responded to Julia Bluhm's petition with a letter in a recent issue. She vowed to never change the shape of girls bodies or faces in her magazine.

Ann Shoket recognised that her magazine had been contacted by many readers before, who felt that Seventeen was digitally enhancing its photos a lot and wondered if the magazine had 'gone too far'. Teenager gathered outside Seventeen's New York office in protest against the use of airbrushing two months ago. it was then that the 14 year old created an online petition against the teen magazines use of editing, in hopes that it would change its Photoshopping policies and use more realistic images to make Teenagers feel better about themselves.

The protesting teenagers also wanted Seventeen to commit to printing one unaltered photo spread per month - which they have agreed to do. This is a great victory for Julia Bluhm and teenage girls everywhere. With the success of what she has achieved with Seventeen magazine, Julia Bluhm has moved onto Teen Vogue, in which she started a new online petition asking for the magazine to follow in the footsteps of Seventeen.

Julia Bluhm said - during the protest outside the office of Seventeen in May - "I know how much pictures in the media have an effect in the self esteem of girls and their body image." I agree with this statement completely. Julia was even invited to the offices of Seventeen after her petition to be involved in an article called 'Give girls Images of real girls'. Ann Shoket included in her letter to the readers an insight into the Magazines photography and why it decided to create a Body Peace Treaty, endorsed by the National Eating Disorders Association and the Commission for Positive Images of Women and Girls, which will hopefully stop young girls stop obsessing about their bodies.  The Treaty says 'the magazine will celebrate every kind of beauty in our pages. Without a range of body types, skin tones, heights, hair textures, the magazine and the world would be boring.'

The petition read: 'Girls want to be accepted, appreciated and likes. And when they don't fit the criteria, some girls like to fix themselves. This can lead to eating disorders, dieting, depression and low self-esteem.'

Julia Bluhm did an amazing job by lust changing one Magazines perspective, hopefully others will follow.