REVERSE PHOTOSHOPPING

A few months ago I had come across an article via Facebook that took me by complete shock. The term I learned in this article was called "Reverse PhotoShopping".  Essentially this phrase means that retouching photos is not used to make models look thinner, but is now being used to make models look fuller and healthier; no ribs or bones protruding from their skin.

This took a minute for me to process that it was actually a real thing that was happening. In our society, there is so much pressure for models to look extremely slim; collar bones showing, hip bones showing, and the infamous thigh gap. The models are trying to hard to fit this look that some are making themselves sick in order to achieve it.  Unfortunately, the editors are able to cover up the ill-side of models by now plumping the models back up to a healthier, yet still slim figure via Photoshop.

The former editors of Cosmo, Healthy Magazine, Vogue, and British Vogue have all admitted to having to photoshop models to make them look not so thin. These are fashion magazines that have a huge influence over the female population, specifically how we as women are supposed to replicate. As I have previously written about, media has a large impact on female's perceptions of their own body, and it can be correlated with a higher percentage of eating disorders. In a recent study I read:
"A meta-analysis of 25 studies involving female subjects, examined the effect of exposure to media images of the slender body ideal. Body image was significantly more negative after viewing thin media images than after viewing images of either average size models, plus size models or inanimate objects. "
-essentially this means that girls feel worse about their own bodies after seeing the bodies of the models in magazines. We are buying the magazines that are making us feel inadequate. I admit to buy Cosmo, Vogue, etc, unknowing that even if I am aware of how the media affects me, I am still buying into the falseness of the images.  It is hard to continuously remind yourself when you are looking at a beautiful editorial of Gisele in Vogue to remind yourself that, "yes she is gorgeous, but she is photoshopped to further enhance her 'beauty' (which can be defined as clear skin or a small wasit) and it is almost impossible to look like that without the help of photoshop". That is not an affirmation I want or will remember to tell myself each time i pick up one of these magazine. The intense use of photoshopping needs to be regulated and its heartbreaking that something this emotionally damaging has not yet been banned.
THANK GOODNESS SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT! I was so happy as I was researching articles for this blog that two congresswomen were in the midst of trying to regulate photoshopping. Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Democratic Rep. Lois Capps have co-sponsored a bill entitled H.R. 4341: Truth in Advertising Act of 2014, which calls for photoshop regulation in media and advertising. Essentially this bill will try and create guidelines for photoshopping, so as it does not continue to promote unrealistic body images. YAY! I will continue to follow this as I think its fantastic. (SIDE NOTE: this is the link that talks about the bill, you can actually voice your opinion to your local congress member about your support so hopefully it can get passed! https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr4341/text)
However, as I was writing this article is dawned on me, I dont have to wait for a bill to pass to regulate photoshop. As a model, I have signed numerous contracts allowing others to photoshop me for use in their editorials. What most independent models such as myself dont do, is create their own contracts. Usually they are used to protect their own rights of publication and such. What I have decided to do from today forward, is to have my own contract for those who i work with stating that they are unable to use photoshop to manipulate my size, shape, or proportions. If they are unwilling to sign it, I will be unwilling to work with them. I would love for this idea to catch on among other models in my community, and possibly further than that. I will be developing a contract within the next week or so, and if you want a copy to use for your own modeling PLEASE EMAIL ME! I think that waiting for major corporations such as Vogue and Cosmo to decide to start regulating photoshopping is going to be a LONG battle. I think starting with the models is a better way to fix the problem sooner. Just imagine is Gisele or Kate Upton prevented the use of photoshopping to manipulate their size, how much support they would get from others. This may be a pipe dream, but I like to dream big :)

here are some of the links to the articles I found my information on if you want to look further into this topic <3 you are all amazing and thanks again for reading

http://jezebel.com/congresswomen-introduce-bill-to-regulate-overzealous-ph-1564436575
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792687/
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr4341/text

#anorexia #bulimia #instagramproblems

First let me share my excitement with everyone. I officially have an interview with Monte Nido NYC. for those of you who are not familiar with it, it is one of the most prestigious Eating Disorder Treatment Facilities in the nation. It has been my long term goal to become apart of Monte Nido so I am beyond crazy excited that I even have an interview with them.  They just opened Monte Nido NYC this month, so it will be great to be apart of a brand new branch. So please, send lots of positive vibes my way!

As you can see from the title, this post has to deal with my recent realization how instagram unknowingly allows hundreds and thousands of individuals to expose their eating disorder and even get supporters on their quest for thinness. Individuals are posting pictures of their emaciated bodies, asking for support and motivation to starve themselves, and helping to cheer them on when they skip dinner. It is really sad.

This was not the only picture of its kind.  People would post "one like=one day of not eating". It made me so angry and sad to see so many likes on someones picture and the comments cheering them on. As discussed in my previous posts, Thinspiration is a big part of the pro-ana world (pro anorexia).  People will use images of emaciated bodies as motivation to get thinner.  What Instagram does now is create an entire library of #thinspiration photos that eating disordered individuals are using as "goals". A main concern with so much #thinspiration available, is that it may also create not only unhealthy goals, but create competition between individuals, trying to be the thinnest, or trading ideas on how they got to a certain weight. This is dangerous because the wealth of information that is out there is not just how to recover, but how to maintain the eating disorder, which makes it a lot easier for an individual new to their disease to learn a lot of negative information very quickly. too quickly. 

#anorexia is another support group (both good and bad) that creates a community for those suffering with it.  a mixture of cries for help, pictures liek the one shown above, and quotes saying "nothing taste as good as thin feels". A lot of negative self-talk is most apparent. Its scary that there are so many people out there who are PRO-ANA (pro-anorexia), and they are able to group together to help support each other maintain their eating disorder instead of trying to overcome it. This type of behavior just reinforces their harmful behavior.  Especially since Instagram is not really monitored and parents and family might have a hard time accessing a loved ones IG page, there is no one to tell these Pro-Ana supporters to stop. It is also hard to tell if these Pro-ANA people are also suffering or if this is just another form of bullying; others taking advantage of someones vulnerable state and using it to take control and tell someone else not to eat or tell them that starving themselves is the right thing to do.  I think i spent about an hour just looking through different hashtags of all these pictures and it is hard not to feel heartbroken for these beautiful individuals.  As much as the internet has provided so many resources for eating disorder recovery and recovery groups, negative support is almost as prevalent.  Thank goodness there is a report button, and I think I spent half an hour just reporting...

I thought it was GREAT that instagram has this option. Not because I think reporting the picture will cause a great deal of change, but that might create one less "PRO-ANA" picture for those suffering from an eating disorder. Its sad how engulfed these individuals are by their eating disorder. Another great thing that Instagram has done is to put a warning notice anytime someone tries to search #bulimia #anorexia #eating disorders, etc

This made me so happy to know that there are others out there working towards the cause! The internet and social media is a great way to connect, but we never think people are connecting for these types of reasons.  #Suicide was really depressing as well, and you would think people would be using this to help them out of suicidal ideations, but there are people out there telling them to do follow thru with their suicide. I think in the future of social media, there needs to be more being done about bullying, abusive/offensive statements, and harassment on these sites. A task force or an entire department should be devoted to the cause.  Maybe that could be a prospective venture for me in the future, who knows. lol

What I want everyone to take away from this post, is to be aware of what is out there.  BE aware of what is going on in the world, and as for parents to realize what is out there.  Especially now teenagers have a lot more privacy when it comes to social networking, they can see a lot of things due to the internet and smart phones that was not accessible 10 years ago. This is one of them.  Especially if you have a teen with ED, monitoring all of this is important to make sure they are getting the RIGHT type of support, and not learning tricks of how to hide their eating disorder, or having people support their purging habits.  

to all those who are fighting through their eating disorder, keep fighting, you are strong enough, i believe in you. 

 Pro-Living > Pro-ANA 

Back on track!

I am back. Ive been wanting to be back for a long time now but school, work, internship, and my recent aspirations of modeling have taken up any and all time I have left. It has been over a year since I last wrote so I guess I should catch everyone up on my life. Last year I started my Master’s in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis on Marriage and Family Therapy. My road to being a therapist, working with the eating disorder population, has started! I have had an amazing time so far at Pepperdine University, and I am learning so much, that I am already starting to feel like a real person! I have also started an internship as a “practicing therapist” at a substance abuse center in Compton, CA. It has been a very interesting experience and it feels so amazing being able to practice what I have been learning in school to help better other people’s lives. Its amazing. The reason I did not choose to get an internship at an ED (eating disorders) unit was because I had previous experience at Princeton University Medical Hospital working in the eating disorders unit (which was the most amazing experience), so I wanted to broaden my scope a bit and learn about a different population. I also currently work at Jenny Craig. When I first started working there about a year ago, I didn’t realize how good of a fit it would be for me, but over time I realized that disordered eating has a huge range of how it can affect a person. Overeating and Undereating both are huge issues in today’s society. What they both have in common is that as a “therapist” or “weight loss consultant”, you are trying to help your client obtain a new relationship with food and their body. Both have a hard time with overcoming the control food has had in their lives, and at Jenny Craig I get to help people to establish a new lifestyle towards food and themselves.
 My newest life venture, which is also the primary topic of this post is my new interest in Modeling. I am well aware the stigma of the modeling world and how that effects the media, publications, fashion, etc; and how that has affected society as a whole, especially the female population. Fashion and modeling place a great deal of emphasis towards thin women, and since that is the preference, we see it everywhere. My journey with the modeling world started last year when I auditioned for America’s Next Top Model. This is also where my idea of what type of model I wanted to be had started. During auditions I had met an awesome beautiful girl, who was tall like me, but was not the “stereotypical model”. She was lean, toned, healthy looking, and had curves to her, which most models on the catwalk are missing. As I looked around the group of females I was with, everyone was different shapes and sizes, and it was great to see we had all been in the later rounds of the competition. The girl I had described ended up finishing in the TOP 2! of that season on America’s Next Top Model, and for me that’s when it really dawned on me that the modeling world is starting to change. She did not have to fit the “mold” of a 5’10, 100lbs model, but she still succeeded. A lot of pressure and years of casting those type of models have limited to the runways to size 0s. It seems that the break of 2-4-6-8s are now making their way.
 I have done a lot of thinking about my modeling and how it would affect my career as a therapist working with people with eating disorders, knowing that the industry I am involving myself in has been used as “thinspiration” for thousands of girls who find themselves bent over the toilet because they are trying to strive for thinness. I have thought a lot about it, and realized that the model I want to become is to become a model that should be a inspiration, not a thinspiration. I want to be the model that eats healthy, not depriving herself to fit into a sample size. There is such an obsession with thinness in model world, and I want to enjoy this experience, not suffer through it. I also want to use my modeling to advocate more for ED and positive body image. Basically I want to use this opportunity to be not just a model, but a ROLE model. I know in that, I will succeed. ☺ I will try to update this blog more often with information about ED or just cool articles I think pertain. If you come across any articles feel free to share so I can post it as well. I am so excited to get restarted on this journey! Glad you can join me!

How much does a calorie weigh?

For those of you who have taken a science class, you know that a calorie is unit of energy and is not measures by weight necessarily...what I am referring to is how much weight people give to the importance of a calorie. How important is it to them? How much time do people spend looking at calories, counting calories, thinking about calories, and consuming/not consuming calories? You do not have to have an eating disorder for calories to be important. Athletes count calories to make sure they are consuming enough, Dieticians count calories because it is part of their job.etc. There are many reasons why people count calories and why they are important to them, but there are those out there that calories weigh too much of an importance in their life.
The appearance of calories are showing up everywhere. Companies are now putting the calorie content of a soda in big numbers right on the front of the can, just incase one didn’t bother to look at the nutritional facts on the back. Recently in California it became mandated to put nutritional facts on every menu item in a restaurant; which includes mcdonalds to applebees to starbucks. We all know that a Caramel Frap isn’t always the best choice, but now being unable to escape the realization that its 1500 calories might kill the enjoyment for some. I can understand the reason companies and the government choose to make nutritional facts more available. They want people, who normally aren’t aware, to become more educated about what and how much of it they are consuming. For people who did not pay attention before, now they have no choice anytime they go out to eat or get a soda out of the vending machine. Now that people are aware, they can choose to make the "healthier" decisions, maybe apples instead of French fries, or maybe a diet instead of a regular soda. (I put "healthier" in this case in quotations because not all foods that are low in calories are necessarily healthier). For some having the calories on the side of a can is very helpful, for others, it can be an unwelcome reminder of what they are about to put in their bodies
After seeing the good in the appearance of calories I couldn’t help but see what negative effects there can be. For a person with an eating disorder, calorie content can be very triggering. Seeing it now on everything can seem overwhelming for a person with disordered eating. Its in their face more than it has been, and ordering something from a restaurant might not just be a choice of what they are craving that day, but what has the lowest calorie content. During my internship we were instructed to divert sometimes attention if we could see they were focusing on the nutritional facts on their food items. Working in a ED unit, you notice the important that calories have on someone’s emotions. For someone used to counting calories and controlling what does or does not go into their body, finally introducing food that was before “off limits” due to its calorie content, can be very hard. This is a reason why we were instructed not to let them focus on the nutritional facts label. There are various other reasons for this rule, but I can see how someone in the situation might not enjoy the food item as much if they know the details, or it might even prevent the person from wanting it all together. Eventually, we want those recovering from ED to be able to look at calorie content and not have negative feelings towards them, but in the earlier phases of recovery, this might be impossible. So I can see how those with ED might have a problem with the appearance of caloric intake increasingly obvious on food products, but even those without ed can have problems with it as well.
American culture in the past 10 years or so has devoted so much attention on dieting, and most of these diets involve cutting calories. This creates the problem of what one wants and what one “should” have. Yes, we all want to make healthy food choices, but when we don’t, should we be subjected to the burden of knowing the piece of cheesecake we just consumed was half of our recommended daily calorie intake? I don’t think so.
Besides affecting the consumers of these products now, what about the younger generation. The "dietless" generation. The kids who have no idea what a calorie is or what a diet is, how are they going to react to this change? I was at a restaurant the other day, where, there is calorie content next to the menu item, and I overheard a small child asking the mom what the extra numbers were? The mother told the child that it was the amount of calories. The child proceeded to ask what that meant and the mom said something to the effect that its how many points food is; That good foods are less and bad foods are more. As you can probably predict I wanted to go and slap this woman with the menu lol i was not happy. The child is learning at such a young age what is “good” food and what is “bad” food. In my opinion, there is really no such thing. Everything is good in moderation, and as in life, its always important to have a good balance. It makes me concerned that I know this is not the first child to ask their mom the same question, and it worries me to know what other parents are saying as an answer to this question. Are we setting up the child for a healthy perspective of food, or are we setting them of to have a black/white mentality of what they should and should not eat. Should a child ever feel guilty for eating a certain type of food? Of course not. We should be very aware of how we teach out children about food, so they don’t have an unhealthy perspective later on.
Another very important question is, should an adult ever feel guilty for eating a certain type of food? The answer remains the same, no. But for some, that question might be a little harder to answer for some Remember, youre child is like a sponge and their behaviors will reflect youre own. Just because you are educating your child about food in a healthy manner, if you do not follow your own advise your child will see that. For example, youre at a birthday party and cake is being passed around. Your child grabs a piece of cake, but when the mother is offered a slice she makes a comment saying “no thanks, its too many calories, im trying to watch my figure”, the child will see and pay attention to that, and the next time they are offered a slice of cake, it wouldn’t be too surprising they could give the same response. Like they say, monkey see monkey do. And yes the parent might be trying to stay away from food that is high in calories, but it might not be best to demonstrate your concern about calories in front of your child. I am not saying that this child is going to have an eating disorder later in life, its just something that I would be more aware of as a parent who is trying to teach the child to have a positive view of food.
Anyways, going back to my main subject of the more prominent appearance of calories, I think it should have stayed the way it was. Knowledge is power, but I think in this case it is important to look at the cons and not just the pros. Instead of having the calorie content on the can, I think the government should instead use those efforts to teach kids more about things such as the food pyramid. Teach kids the power of whole grains or what foods can make their bones grow strong. I think if the government took this approach instead of just focusing on calories, I think the perspective of food will change and people will stop stressing about calories and instead embrace foods because of how they help your body to function. Just some food for thought… ;)


PS. sorry about my absence from the blog. trying to get back and pumping out more blogs :)