Airbrushed image alerts ‘good for adolescents’

INTRODUCING warning symbols on airbrushed body images to protect young people from developing eating disorders would be “a very welcome” development, a leading adolescent psychiatrist has said.

Following calls from the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Britain that altered pictures glamorising size zero models be “kitemarked”, Professor Fiona McNicholas, who has carried out extensive research in the area, said she fully endorsed the idea.

Prof McNicholas said, more than ever before, young people felt under serious pressure to conform to a certain image of beauty which only a tiny minority could in reality achieve.