Bethenny Frankel Compares Unedited Photo To Filtered Pic in Commentary on Body Image
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The 'Real Housewives of New York' alum is getting real about photo filtering.
Bethenny Frankel is taking a stand against unrealistic photo editing, and she's using unfiltered photos of herself to prove her point.
The Real Housewives of New York alum took to Instagram on Wednesday to put a highly edited photo of herself side-by-side with the real image in an attempt to urge her followers not to be deceived by unrealistic pictures on social media.
"This is NOT what I look like...and you know that bc I'm not vain and show you the real me," she wrote in the caption. "But if I posted a version of this every day you might start to believe that it might be. This is just how distorted this has all gotten."
In the first photo, which features Frankel posing in a bikini on a beach, her waistline is clearly drawn in with photo editing tools, while her skin is made smoother, her chest is made bigger, and her chin is slimmer and shorter.
The next slide features the same photo, but this time without all of the editing, followed by another slide, which compares the two pictures side-by-side.
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"Filtering is lying: it is deceptive," the 51-year-old continued in her caption. "It makes women feel badly about themselves. It makes young girls insecure and obsessed with an unattainable perfection. It makes middle aged women and mothers feel insecure about themselves."
She also touched on the effects photo editing has on men, saying it creates a "false ideal."
"It's destructive. It's irresponsible. It's insecure and inaccurate," she added. "There is a line between making an effort to look pretty and an outright falsehood."
The business mogul then encouraged her followers to "Swipe to see what I really look like👉🏼" while including the hashtags, "#instagramvsreality#thisisme #speakyourtruth #liveauthentic."
The Instagram post—which has over 100K likes—garnered a lot of love from her fans and other celebrities who commended Frankel for the positive message.
Actress Elizabeth Moss even took to the comments section to tell the Frankel, "You are the absolute coolest and most bad ass and an inspiration to us all ❤️."
But it's not the first time Frankel has spoken out about the impact of photoshop and filtering, as she recently called out the Kardashians specifically for their notoriously edited photos, which she claimed sent harmful messages about body image to younger generations.
"What are we saying to our kids? What is the message, ‘Take it all’? Be as rich as possible; filter as much as possible; be as fake as much as possible; brag as much as possible; be self-involved and take pictures of yourself that make you look in the best light possible, as much as possible?” Frankel stated in a recent episode of her podcast Just B with Bethenny Frankel, while calling for a "Kardashian intermission."
The Kardashians—particularly Kim and Khloé Kardashian—have received growing amounts of criticism for their highly filtered pics, with the SKIMS founder getting called out just earlier this week for an alleged photoshop fail where she seemed to have completely edited out her trap muscles to make her shoulder appear more defined.
The seemingly edited image was pointed out by TikTok user @caroline_in_thecity, who compared the photo to another shot of Kim that looked much more realistic.
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Kim, 41, has previously been asked about the role she plays in promoting unrealistic body image for her millions of social media followers, telling Allure that she feels her beauty standards are "attainable."
"If I'm doing it, it's attainable," she said at the time, prompting enraged critics to point out that the reality star's wealth privilege affords her a personal trainer, a personal chef, cosmetic procedures and more.
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