Seventeen Magazine Vows Not to Alter Pictures

Back in May, I was telling you about 14 year old Julia Bluhm, from Waterville, Maine. She was tired of all the photo shopped pictures in Seventeen Magazine.

Julia started and online petition then traveled to New York City with friends and held a protest in front of the offices of Seventeen magazine holding their own photo shoot.

Well, looks like the editors of Seventeen listened BIG TIME! The only thing Julia was requesting was for the  the magazine to add a feature monthly with a real untouched photo shoot.

This past Tuesday (July 3) Seventeen's editor in chief, Ann Shoket said the staff signed a pact vowing to:

“Never change girls’ body or face shapes (never have, never will)"

"Always feature real girls and models who are healthy. Regardless, of clothing size. Being healthy is about honoring your natural shape ”

The pledge also goes on to say that if anything in the magazine confuses a reader or makes them feel bad, they want to know about it immediately.

Shoket also wrote in the August issue that the magazine had drafted what it called a Body Peace Treaty, after she heard from girls “who were concerned that we’d strayed from our promise to show real girls as they really are.”

The magazine promises to post photos on their blog site that will show the progression of the photo shoot process as well.

What does Julia think about this? She is ecstatic! As she should be!

“Seventeen listened!” Ms. Bluhm wrote on her petition page, under the headline “How We Won.” “They’re saying they won’t use Photoshop to digitally alter their models! This is a huge victory, and I’m so unbelievably happy.”

Way to go Seventeen Magazine! Now if we can just get Cosmo to do the same for us "grown ups"!

via Seventeen Magazine Vows to Show Girls 'as They Really Are' - NYTimes.com.