Photo shows Kardashians are selling a lie

OPINION

If you want to give your daughters a positive self-image, one of the most critical things is to shield them from unrealistic representations of the female body.

As a teen, my mother wouldn’t let me subscribe to fashion or celebrity magazines, and as a young girl, was deeply uncomfortable allowing Barbies into our home, what with her impossibly proportioned dimensions of waist, hips and legs.

It’s maddening for any girl or woman trying to compare themselves to the impossible, which has led to the movement for fashion models to ditch the emaciated look and instead embrace healthier physical appearances.

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Social media is, unfortunately, the Wild West for this kind of beauty content, where there is no thoughtful discussion or debate about what can and does get posted. Women, celebrities and otherwise, can post images so expertly enhanced it’s impossible to discern what is real and what is not.

And there are no worse offenders on this front than the Kardashian sisters.

Which makes Khloe Kardashian’s latest temper tantrum over a realistic and undoctored image of the star poolside that was “accidentally” posted so infuriating.
 

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Her team has used legal means to try to have the image wiped off the Internet and Khloe put out an overwrought plea for understanding about why she’s just so hurt by the perfectly acceptable photo circulating.

She wrote, “As someone who has struggled with body image her whole life, when someone takes a photo of you that isn’t flattering in bad lighting or doesn’t capture your body the way it is after working hard to get it to this point – and then shares it to the world – you should have every right to ask for it to not be shared, regardless of who you are … It’s almost unbearable living up to the impossible standards that the public have all set for me.”
 

Give me a break. “Impossible standards” is what Khloe and her sisters Kim, Kourtney, Kylie and Kendall push every day, and profit from immensely. Does she really expect us to believe Kardashian and Jenner Instagram posts are the results of “good lighting,” rather than Photoshop and airbrushing? That she doesn’t have an army of trainers, nutritionists and, yes, plastic surgeons to keep everything in line?

Khloe Kardashian perpetuates a machine of unrealistic body image, and now we’re supposed to feel sorry that we got a glimpse of the real her? We’ve seen the bikini body behind the curtain. Here’s hoping it will help tear down the whole illusion.

This story originally appeared on Page Six and is republished here with permission