Dear Anna Wintour,

As editor of one of the most, if not the most, famous fashion magazines in the
world, you know that everyone wants to be considered beautiful and that people are
willing to do crazy and extreme things to achieve the beauty standards. No matter
when in history, society always valued and worshiped beauty, and women did crazy,
unnatural, unhealthy things just to feel accepted. Nowadays things have gotten
worse, there are more standards and they are impossible to achieve in a natural
way.
People should always do things that will make them happy, even if it means
going through a plastic surgery, but everything has limits.“It’s an unknown risk
because you’re dependant upon the technical ability and integrity of the person
performing the treatment – and the types of organisms you may be exposed to can
run the gamut from bacteria to viruses, to other types of organisms, like fungi, even
micro bacteria related to the tuberculosis organism," said Phillip Tierno, PhD, director
of clinical microbiology at NYU Medical Center in New York City.
Girls are constantly comparing themselves with the girls they see in movies, in
advertisements, in magazines, or even just walking in the street. According to BBC,
a survey made with 227 female university students, showed that women tend to
compare their own appearance negatively with their peer group and with celebrities.
This comparison can cause the development of mental health issues and eating
disorders, like bulimia and anorexia.
What most of the girls don’t know, don’t believe, or just simply don’t care, is
that most of the photos that they see on the internet and use as a goal are
photoshopped. More than thousands of people all around the world read Vogue,
they are inspired by it, the girls in the cover are who they aspire to be and look like.
Of course I'm not accusing the magazine of photoshop, but I know that retouching
photos is common, to make the person’s skin look smoother, nicer and clearer, I
know that this sounds harmless, but it isn’t.
I am asking you to think about the young girls that spend the day looking at
pictures of celebrities, thinking that they are naturally like that and only have a little
bit of makeup on and no photoshop, crying themselves to sleep because they are
not like that and probably are never going to be. I am asking you to put a label, next
to the photos on the magazine, especially in the cover, to warn your readers that that
picture has been altered.
Thank you for your attention.
Sources:
● “The Complicated Truth about Social Media and Body Image.” BBC Future,
BBC,
www.bbc.com/future/article/20190311-how-social-media-affects-body-image.
● Nolan, Megan. “Why Do We All Have to Be Beautiful?” The New York Times,
The New York Times, 6 Apr. 2019,
www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/women-beauty.html.
● WebMD. “Dying to Be Beautiful? The Health Risks of Cosmetic Procedures.”
Fox News, FOX News Network, 25 Mar. 2015,
www.foxnews.com/story/dying-to-be-beautiful-the-health-risks-of-cosmetic-pro
cedures.
● Vivian Diller, Ph.D. “Is Photoshop Destroying America's Body Image?”
HuffPost, HuffPost, 6 Sept. 2011,
www.huffpost.com/entry/photoshop-body-image_b_891095.
● Gina Vaynshteyn Updated April 15, and Gina Vaynshteyn. “Why Photoshop Is
More Deadly Than You Thought.” HelloGiggles,
hellogiggles.com/lifestyle/photoshop-deadly-thought/.