You too can look THIS good...

I often wonder when I see overly edited photos of celebrities if they have any say in how their image is portrayed.  Is it all agents and editors who make the decisions or do the celebrities ever step in and say, "Ummm...that really doesn't look like me at all.  Can you please add the crow's feet and my cute little beer pudge back in?  Thanks."

When you begin to see yourself not as a person but as a brand there has to be a certain amount of detachment from self that happens (it's okay because that person on the cover of Vogue isn't really me, it's my image) and I suppose when your livelihood depends heavily upon the image you project you may not want to intervene no matter how extreme the edits may be.  They might even convince themselves that it's harmless since everyone knows how edited these things are and that they don't portray reality. Right?

Wrong.  Even knowing that these things are edited women and girls still hold these images as the ideal of how they should look.  I remember years ago back in my 20's that when I would do my best to age gracefully; that I wouldn't fight the progression of nature because I would learn to love and accept myself for who I was.  Today I find myself spending far more time in the skin care aisle examining the anti-aging benefits of creams than I care to admit and my motivation for working out tends be equally split between a desire for fitness and a keeping the arm sag at bay.

This video below makes the point with a great deal of humor and illustrates just how extreme some of these edits actually are.