Industry body defends photoshopping after criticism from Girl Guides

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One of the UK's largest magazine bodies has defended the 'photoshopping' of images after the launch of a campaign by the Girl Guides calling for altered images to be labelled.

The Periodical Publishers Association told Journalism.co.uk today that the "tidying up" of images is used to remove "distractions".

The organisation for young women called on the government to introduce compulsory labelling on images which have been touched-up by magazines, which they claim place "unrealistic" pressures on girls.

In a report by the Press Association Liz Burnley, chief guide at Girlguiding UK, said magazines are responsible for reinforcing body images.

"We know how profoundly they feel the pressure to conform to a particular body image and how badly they can be affected by these unobtainable ideals," she said. "We are proud to support the calls of our members who believe that it is time that the Prime Minister addressed their concerns and acted in the interests of girls and young women across the country."

But the PPA has defended the process of digitally altering photographs, adding that images in UK magazines represent a "broad range" of body images.

"As part of the process of producing a magazine, digital images are altered in a variety of ways," a spokesman told Journalism.co.uk. "This covers everything from cropping and resizing to enhancing colours or applying backgrounds or effects. Images are also tidied up to remove things that distract the reader, such as stray strands of hair, spots, bruises, creasing on clothes and shadows.

"Magazine publishers take their responsibility to readers seriously; they have a strong connection with their readers and millions of magazines published each year in the UK celebrate a broad range of body images and contain a wealth of articles promoting health and wellbeing among readers."

He added: "The wider issues of body image and eating behaviours are multi-layered and extremely complex".