Persuasive Essay- Grade 7

Hana

Block E/F

Nov 7, 2012

Photoshop is Effecting Self Esteem

According to CNN.com, Barbie has made girls between the ages of 5-7 feel insecure about their body weight. That fact shows how far photoshop in toys and photos has created low self esteem for young girls. If photoshop is effecting girls as young as 5-7 then imagine the impact it makes on teenage girls and even grown women. Most teenage girls are insecure about their body weight and their looks or features on their face. Photoshop creates standard of looks that girls try to work their way to, but it is completely fake so they are trying to do the impossible. Photoshop should be banned from all photos.

First reason why photoshop should be banned, is because photoshop makes girls feel very insecure. Girls will be flipping through magazines at home and be looking through photos of “gorgeous” girls. In the photos the girls have “perfect” noses, “no” acne, the “bluest” eyes they had ever seen, etc...Then the next time they see themselves in the mirror, they don’t like what they see. They are comparing themselves to the fake photos and it isn’t fair that they are suffering this heart ache. Now ¼ girls and women all over the world are depressed about their body weight. That is how many people get backstabbed every time they look in the mirror. They are wanting a different body, they probably think, “I wish I had hair like Taylor Swift,” “I wish I had a body like Megan Fox...” What women don’t realize is that the photos are completely fake.

Secondly, girls try to change things about themselves when they feel insecure. Women will do anything if it means that they will look prettier. The most common thing that women will do, is put on makeup. They think that makeup hides, “imperfections.” All it does is make women look fake and it can sometimes make them look unhealthy. In the past I have put on foundation to hide my freckles. I have always been insecure about them, but this year I stopped putting it on because I realized that I should embrace them. I encourage all girls to embrace their insecurities. Another thing that women do now is plastic surgery. They will have crazy surgeries just to have one less wrinkle, or a slightly smaller nose, or fuller lips, etc... Plastic surgery looks so incredibly fake and it doesn’t look good. Sometimes women will have plastic surgery to look more like a celebrity that they have only seen in photos, but they don’t know that the women don’t look like that in real life.

People may argue that it makes the person in the photoshopped photo feel good. What they don’t realise is that the impact could be much bigger. For an example, if Selena Gomez posts a picture of herself that she really loves and makes her feel really good, and then it makes thousands of girls feel terrible about themselves. It may be unintentional, but that is the impact with photoshop and celebrities. If photoshop was banned then all the hurt would go away. I think that even celebrities shouldn’t be allowed to use photoshop the most because when they used it, their impact is the biggest. Now Seventeen Magazine doesn’t use photoshop. A couple years ago a girl came to Seventeen Magazine with thousands of signatures asking them to not use photoshop in photos. Ever since, Seventeen Magazine hasn’t used photoshop and the problem decreased a little. That is the action that I want to be taken all over the world, not just in Seventeen Magazine.  

Photoshop shouldn’t just be banned from everyones photos, it has to be banned! It really makes girls feel insecure and we don’t want them to start changing things about themselves. It will help teenagers and women all over the world. If we don’t banned photoshop then we would be letting ourselves and our friends get hurt, and that isn’t fair. Lets stop feeling bad every time we flip through a magazine or go on the internet. Lets stop letting the fake photos hurt us. So lets all delete photoshop from our computers! And together we can start a new generation of high esteem, naturally beautiful girls.

Refection

1. Why did you chose to write a persuasive essay on this topic?

I chose to write this topic because it has effected me. I have felt insecure about myself after looking through magazines. Last year I found out that most of those photos use Photoshop. So I thought that it was really important to tell girls that those photos are fake and that the women in the photos don't look like that.

2.Challenges I faced while writing my essay:

The biggest challenge that I faced was that there wasn't a lot of statistics on this topic. It isn't a very popular topic so there wasn't a lot of information on that specific topic. So I had to used statistics that were related to the topic, not completely on the topic.

3. What am I most proud of in my piece?
I am the most proud of my conclusion. I think it sums the topic nicely and makes a clear statement of what action I want to be done. I also think that I used a really persistent voice in the essay. Hopefully, it will convince the reader.

4. One thing that I would change/improve would be:
I would like to improve the statistics that I got. I think that they are okay, but there could be more and they could be more on the topic.