just watched the segment. the editor of self just doesn't get it and only prepetuated her hypocritical stance. i will think twice about purchasing any further copies of that publication - at least until they get a new editor and new POV

SELF should be ashamed... perpetuating the problem rather than contributing to the solution. If you ask me, Lucy Danzinger could use a good 'air brushing' on her attempts at spin!... long live the mighty dollar, no matter how many young girls it hurts!

I can live without my SELF subscription. Sorry Lucy, you blew this one!... "got 5 minutes"? how about an apology (minus the spin) to your readers?

We expect truth in food labeling, news reporting, from our elected officials, doctors and clergy, and from our friends and families, to name a few. We feel outrage or betrayed when we are lied to. Yet as a society, we continue to tolerate and even support the constant deception imposed on us from women's magazines like Vogue, and Self. Why are we not outraged by what the fashion biz and entertainment industry dictate as an almost unattainable standard of beauty and that they alter what is real to fit their narrow view of perfection? How do women ever think they can be taken seriously if they continue to buy into this artificial deception?

I believe that the Editor in Chief of Self magazine is personally responsible for continuing to foster poor self worth and poor self esteem in the young girls and women who see the altered and doctered pictures of stars and other women...contributing to the idea that women should be a size 2 and anything bigger than that should be "fixed"....and did anyone notice that this woman herself was very skinny to the point of looking GROSS!!! All she did today on the show was play word games about what the picture on the cover of the magazine was compared to other pictures...referring to the cover as a poster...ect....that wasn't the point of the question...she NEVER really answered the question. This leaves the perception that she supports the doctoring of photos AND she must support teaching all women that unless they are a size 2...they are of lesser worth than those who are.

PATHETIC!!!

Lorrie

That guest you had on this morning from Self Magazine sucked. She over talked herself into looking like an idiot. Clearly she does not have a clue of what it's like to love the skin you're in. I thought her reasons (excuses) for the air brushing was insufficient and a little demeaning. Why can't people just be honest -- the magazines are only interested in $$, not in what people really experience or feel.

Meredith and that beautiful plus sized model should have told her to shut up and eat a sandwich!

First of all, this topic is rediculous...and so contrived by your producers. First of all, most of the time you are 'informing" the public about childhood obesity and how rampant it is. Now you turn that upside down this a.m. by leading this story by pretending to be so shocked by the fact that most 11 year old girls think they are fat. You have been pounding the mantra that most American kids are obese for years! Now your show has decided to focus on this irrelevant mag photo as a scapegoat for young womens' poor self body image? OH C'MON!!! YOU and other media are sending mixed messages to the pathetic sheeple that think your "facts" and your "studies" are accurate. Thank Gawd there are still folks in this country that realize your show, and shows like it are just fluff. Quit trying to psycho analyze young women. You are just trying to create controversy where there is none. Leave the 11 yr olds alone to grow and change, and be themselves and stop pretending that you're providing some kind of service to your viewers.

I have NEVER replied to a tv show before but this made my blood boil! Did I hear that dried up prune editor say "we just scraped the fat.." before she was cut off? Visually, just look at those two women, one comfortable and prosperous in her skin, the other wilted and wan, trying to justify why we, the American women should look like her! When will the Powers that Be recognize that the AVERAGE size of us is 14! Not 0, not 2, not even 3! Don't they get that American women are STARVING for clothing designed with us in mind, and that we have large pocketbooks too? (And our clothing is made overseas where the average might be in those numbers!) Get a grip, male-dominated Madison Ave., and grow up! Stop trying to create your fantasies at the cost of women starving their bodies and minds to try to be visible in your impossible wet dreams!

I have NEVER replied to a tv show but this interview made my blood boil! Just take a look at the visual..a lovely woman, beautiful and content in her skin and a dried up saggy old prune trying to make a sorry case for why we women should WANT to look like her? Who doesn't get that the AVERAGE American woman is a size 14. Not 0, not 1, 2, or even 3-12! Madison Ave. is full of MEN who continue to feed their wet dreams instead of waking up to the fact that the boomers are the ones with the FAT pocketbooks and are STARVING for well designed clothing; not sleazy overseas-manufactured (by tiny women) tiny clothing! And I haven't even gotten into the psychological aspects!

I guess I am foolish to think that at a time when our new President is willing to state that he made a mistake, said or did the wrong thing and that he wants to take responsibility for his actions, that maybe other people in the public eye would be able to do the same and just say "I or we thought she would look "better" (if she looked thinner) then trying to play it off as showing her confidence. I thought with a title like "Self" that they might actually believe that IT IS OKAY to be yourself and it is okay to like your-SELF. Well I think they should change their name to "BE your-SELF as long as we approve and if we don't, we will change you to meet OUR standards so we could sell magazines." I work with young girls and boys and know first hand how magazines and media warp their sense of Self and self worth, thanks for nothing SELF magazine! I hope you can take a good look in the mirror and through a camera lens and work on your-SELF.

I watched this piece this morning - MEREDITH, I love you, you're a real journalist... you're smart and affable but I trust you to also hold people accountable. You let those two talk over you, skirt the issue, avoid responsibility and in general not even speak to the issue. I actually talked to my TV and said, "Meredith, stop letting them do that, nail them on this." But you didn't. You were way too polite and they kept interrupting you. All they did was talk fast with a bunch of irrelevant platitudes. I knew you had it in you to stop them in their tracks and YOU DIDN'T! Girlfriend, come on, get your tough back girl. If this took place on The View, you ladies would have made them squirm more.... you let them come on the show and spin a bunch of bull@!$%#.

The Today Show crew is still my favorite though.

I would like to begin by saying that this is nothing knew, touch ups are done by all the magazines all the time. Having said that...teenagers who do see these pictures think that movie stars/rock strs etc look like that, all the time. False, this gives them the wrong information. We are all made differently big, short, tall, fat whatever. In the end we all humans beings and beautiful in our own way.

I understand the concern re magazines, media, etc. giving women (especially young girls, perhaps) unrealistic ideals of "beauty." However, I think there can be a fine line between the message of accepting yourself the way you are, and accepting weight gain and obesity. Of course it is not realistic (or healthy) for everyone to strive to be a size 0 or to look like a model or celebrity. However, being overweight, even by as little as 10-20 pounds, increases the risk of premature death, diabetes, and cancer, while being significantly overweight or obese increases these risks. Perhaps there should be more focus on achieving a healthy lifestyle and a healthy weight, instead of focusing simply on appearance or "beauty."

I am not a personal reader of the mag but it's simple...as a designer I understand you want to "clean up" an image...remove blemishes, improve lighting, remove flyaways, etc...but when you change the body, you alter what is REAL. It's no longer celebrating the individual but celebrating the IDEA OF A BETTER INDIVIDUAL. Why is Kelly not as good as she is? Why does she have to appear on the cover slimmer? Why can't we celebrate her as she is...she is still the beautiful woman worthy of the cover.

We have become a society of non exisiting reality...we celebrate the LIES & ILLUSIONS of our lives instead of celebrating all the GIFTS GOD has bestowed upon us. It's no different from a segment you all showed earlier about "faking being rich"...why do we thrive on living a LIE? Why do we celebrate living beyond our means? We have gone beyond trying to keeping up with the Joneses...we are trying to keep up with the Jones's, the Smith's, the Pitt's...it's ridiculous!!! We tell folks you can live on a budget but you can also RENT the @!$%# you desire...let everybody she just how you are living the life! What life? You are spending your hard earn money in order to appease or impress everybody else. If you don't have the money to own it...then why & the hell would you spend money to rent it? & God forbid you damage it?!!!

...and yet we wonder why our kids are SO MESSED UP? Why our kids lack any respect for themselves, their friends, their elders, their history, MONEY???? We are a society of pretenders. We pretend to be who we are not in order to pretend we are living the best life...when the whole time the best life is the simple life being denied. Everybody at one time or another has fat around the mid-section, has scares, dark circles, bad hair day, chipped polish, fat ankles, big hips, one body part bigger than the other...& SO THE F..K WHAT!? We are all beautiful, we are all unique, & we are all special...yet NO ONE WANTS TO CELEBRATE THEIR UNIQUENESS...instead it is viewed upon as a flaw & it MUST BE CORRECTED.

It's ok to make something look better...when you look good, you feel good...but when looking good moves to looking a lie..then I think we have to rethink our actions...be accountable for our every action...we've got to not only TELL THE TRUTH...we've got to want to HEAR THE TRUTH.

LOL!!! & we say we want our daughters to have great body images of themselves...PLEASE! We perpetuate the lies (however white they are) to keep the mighty dollar rolling in...we are a society SOLD on image...IMAGE IS EVERYTHING YET WE DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL THE IMAGE IS OR EVEN WHAT WE ARE TRULY LOOKING AT...this is PRICELESS.

Luv ya Today Show :-)

WOW! I hope to hear a lot more about this. There are a lot of great comments on here. I have struggled with trying to "look like I'm supposed to" for the last forty years. I'm now my heaviest and a size 14. Because of this one issue, I feel like I'm not good enough and it effects me daily. I won't let my husband near me because I'm sure I would totally turn him off. I may not give him enough credit to think he is really that shallow, but I can't help myself. I feel turned off by me. At the same time I am trying to be a positive role model to my tween daughter. She saw the magazine cover of Kelly and said wow, she is thin! My daughter is a beautiful person, smart, funny, and talented - just like her mother. Unfortunately, she is built just like her mother and I pray she doesn't learn to hate her body - and her SELF - because of it.

Self should not have make Kelly look like something she is not - skinny. She was made to look like a hypocrite and I believe that she has promoted that she is happy in her skin. Kelly is a gal with some extra pounds that has a successful career and that is what girls and women need to focus on. If Self wanted a skinny gal on the cover, there are, sadly, too many of them in Hollywood.

I watched the show this morning, like I always do, and thought the editor of SELF made a fool of herself. There is no spin on trying to justify modifiying the way a person truly looks in order to create "a more perfect one". I personally thought the editor looked awful and thin and Emmie looked stunning and alive. I am a full figured woman and have struggled with "what I am supposed to look like", and projecting this image of Kelly is wrong. She is beautiful right now and to alter her is just shouting what everyday women and girls are trying to not hear, that we aren't good enough or pretty enough because we aren't thin and can fit into a size 2. I wish we weren't ambushed by the images that we are, but it doesn't make it any better when the editor of a magazine with the title of SELF, is trying to justify why she thought it necessary in order to sell the magazine. I will no longer purchase SELF.

Absolutely not. That is the cause of all these young ladies killing themselves trying to look like some stupid model they will never look like. Stop the madness. I don't have a daughter but if did I would set her straight looks will fade but your brains will get you so much further in life and you will be happier for it. If I knew then what I know now. I would be so much better off. Skinny is not everything these magazines should promote looking healthy and having brains is what you have to do to be happy not focus on being 80 pounds and looking ugly and being the dumbest person on earth. Magazines should put on billboards that being smart looks/sounds better than being skinny and stupid. Word of advice to the girls become smart that way you will always have control over your life for as long as you live. Go to school graduate from High School, go to College graduate from College get all your degrees behind you there will always be time to have babies believe me don't learn the hard way. Be smart not skinny of course if you can have both more power to you brain,beauty, and power now that is the sexiest thing you can do for yourself. This is what magazine's should always show be all you can be and that is the definition of being sexy. Smart equals Sexy one hundred percent. No if's,and's or but's about it.

My sister has very serious body issues and magazines that do this are making it worse. Women and men come in all shapes and sizes, with cellulite without cellulite, hooked noses, button noses, thin lips thick lips. If magazines actually published real, un-photoshopped images, people like my sister wouldn't have such serious hang-ups with their bodies. I can understand a little photo-shopping like counter-acting redness or red-eye, but trimming inches from hips and making breasts bigger is ridiculous. But until EVERYONE makes a stand and stops buying magazines it will continue.

I have been fighting body image problems for as long as i can remember - and it's because people think we should be perfect - it's time to stop airbrushing people to make magazines sell - show a real women for once

I see nothing wrong with editors re-touching magazine covers or photos in them. What is wrong is that people like YOU ALL seem to think that you should look like a magazine cover. I have no expectation that I will ever look like a magazine cover and recognize that most actresses/models don't look like that in real life. The magazine (EVERY MAGAZINE) is selling a fantasy, just as I don't expect to have the same proportions of a cartoon character. Stop assuming that people that entertain such as actresses or models will ever look like you becaue even when editors don't re-touch them, they are still wearing a ton of makeup, in good lighting, wearing body slimmers and spend hours a day at the gym. Instead teach yourself and your daughters that it is THEIR job to look good and OUR job to be smart.... trust me they will have a healthier outlook on the world than all you nuts who like to blame magazine editors for your own issues.