Magazine offers ‘body peace treaty’

NEW YORK – Score one for girl power.

A 14-year-old Maine ballet dancer who led a crusade against altered photos in Seventeen magazine now has a promise from top editor Ann Shoket to leave body shapes alone, reserving Photoshop for the stray hair, clothing wrinkle, errant bra strap or zit.

And when Shoket or her staff do manipulate images, she vowed in the August issue, they’ll post before and after shots on the magazine’s Tumblr page for full transparency.

Shoket’s promises are included in a “body peace treaty” that also commits the magazine to always feature healthy girls and models regardless of clothing size.

The young activist, Julia Bluhm, said Friday from her summer camp she’s “really excited.”

“I didn’t think it would get this big,” she said. “It’s a really great surprise for me.”

Julia and her mom, Mary Beiter, sat down with Shoket in New York in early May to discuss the thousands of signatures on the Waterville girl’s online petition at Change.org. Julia declared victory after Shoket’s announcement, ending with more than 84,000 signatures.

Now, two of her fellow bloggers from SPARK Summit, a group of girls and young women trying to end the sexualization of girls in the media, are targeting Teen Vogue to make the same commitment. They’ve collected more than 15,000 signatures since Tuesday.

Shoket did not identify Julia by name in her full-page declaration, which also denied the magazine ever changed the shapes of bodies and faces. She had no further comment Friday.

The editor did cite the support of the National Eating Disorders Association. The group’s president, Lynn Grefe, lauded the effort as a first step but said far more must be done to promote positive body image and a more attainable standard of health and beauty in magazines and other media.

“I’m not saying it’s a total victory,” Grefe said. “Seventeen, Teen Vogue, Vogue, Cosmo, every magazine still has ads for diet products and other things that we find problematic, but in terms of the Photoshopping stuff, I believe that Ann is sincere and wants to really educate the consumer and work with the girls and show them what has been Photoshopped and how to recognize that.”

Julia’s mother also was pleased but agreed: “Certainly there’s probably more that they could do, but these things probably come in stages, and something is something. Something is good. It opens the door. That’s always the biggest hurdle.”