Earlier in the week, 14-year-old Julia Bluhm made headlines when she started a petition against Seventeen Magazine for their use of Photoshop. She, and many others who have signed the petition, don’t think it gives women a clear picture of what those women actually look like and I agree.

I think this madness about women’s bodies being perfect needs to stop. I think it is great to be healthy and exercise, but we should be teaching women how to do it the right ways. I think we as Americans have become too obsessed with image. It is really getting out of hand.

Having your picture altered to make you look a certain way isn’t going to change how you or others perceive you, and it isn’t going to fix whatever “problem” on your body you think that you have. We all have insecurities about ourselves; no one is perfect. I think rather than focusing on the imperfections and making those a negative we need to find ways to see them as positives.

I think it is good that we want to stop this unhealthy lifestyle that is going through our country, but there is a right and a wrong way to do it. By putting up all these false pictures of people online and in magazines we are forcing an alternate reality that no one can achieve. We need to start teaching women that in order to be healthy you have to be comfortable in your own skin and be happy with who you are.

We need to promote exercise in a smarter way too. Instead of making it about being “skinny” it should be more about just exercising to feel great. When we put pressure to be “skinny” on women we are forcing insecurities.. Many women feel that if they don’t look the way that the media depicts, then they aren’t “pretty” or they aren’t good enough.

Not every woman is going to be size 2. It just isn’t going to happen. Everybody has a different body type, different family history, different everything. This is why we all look different. Seriously though, what if we all looked the same? How boring would that be?

We need to stop using pictures that aren’t real. Magazines should start using pictures of “real” women. Women who have curves, who have just had kids, who are the way they are. There is nothing more beautiful than being yourself.

I agree with this 14-year-old that magazines should be held responsible for using the real pictures and putting real women in those magazines. If you agree please sign the petition that she has started.