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We have all herd about the stars from George Clooney to Jennifer Aniston and many others as well photo shopping their photos. We have always asked ourselves why. Why would stars want to do this? when they are already beautiful, why photo shop your photo?

  The first photo shop was created in 1988 by brothers Thomas and John Knoll, who formed a partnership with adobe photo shop. They shipped out their first product in February of 1990. It is currently in its 20th year of being available. When it first came out, adobe photo shop was mainly used for help with making photos on the computer easier. While today it's mainly used for actual photo shop.

   Social media has always played a part in how people think they should look. From little girls wanting to look like their favorite actress or singer to other girls starving themselves to look "perfect" like that Victoria Secret Model. University of strathclyde did a study in partnership with Ohio University and Iowa University said that college girls and their use of Facebook may have something to do with eating habits, exercise habits, and body image. The study did say that while no correlation can be made between time spent on Facebook and eating disorders it did however predict a worse body image. Some people are saying that since social media has become more prominent that girls are more bombarded by the search of the perfect body. Before social media people would just see that model or actor on the front of a magazine covers and billboards or watch them on T.V.. But know girls are sitting around all day staring at them, but not all social media outlets are bad.  Pinterest  just banned thinspo, which consists of photos, and tips meant to provide inspiration and motivation to those looking to whittle their bodies down to tiny proportions.

   Thinspo typically consists of photos of female bodies with pencil thin arms and jutting out ribs. This is nothing new. A lot of social media outlets are putting a ban on thinspo. While putting a ban on this may be a good thing there are two main problems Number one is enforcing the ban is going to be hard with all of the wiggle rom. Trying to determine if a user is deliberately encouraging this is such a grey area. Pinterest has said that they planned on addressing the users flagged by other users and dealing with them on a case by case basis. Additionally Tumblr is going on the same thing. Although they are hesitant on taking a hard stance they do give out health warnings to the users who search for relating to thinspo.

   The second problem with this ban can be asked with a simple question: what else can the social media outlets do? They don't make the content. The social media outlets can attempt to ban the women and girls who collect these images into one disturbing collage. However a ban on the individual components is impossible. Not all stars photo shop their photos. For instance Kiera Knightly is known for having a more boyish figure. not that there is anything wrong with that. However when King Arthur came out in 2004, she was very shocked by the fact that her breasts had been enhanced by air brush. She was so adverse to the photo shop that when Pirates of the Caribbean came out she refused to let the production company go photo shop crazy. Another surprising actress is Kim Kardashian. When complex magazine printed a photo shopped one and put the original one on line. Kim's thighs looked larger her stomach and her skin less flawless, however she responded by saying that she was proud of her body and that the picture is helpful for everyone to see that just because she is on the cover doesn't mean that she is perfect. Another star is Jessica Simpson. she not only speaks out against flagrant photo shop. she is starting a beautiful me campaign. it is a campaign to motivate teens to embrace their inner beauty. She also practices what she preaches. she recently did a photo shoot for Marie Claire that was completely make up free. But their are other stars that do photo shop their pictures. Like Beyoncé, and others. However we all strive to have this perfect body , but we need to remember that their is no definition for the word perfect. we need to keep our own definition of perfect and strive for that and not try to look like Beyoncé or Angelina Jolie. We need to remember that we come in all shapes and sizes.