Jessica Alba Retouching Debaucle and Standards of Beauty

I'm mad again. There has been some recent stir about Jessica Alba being airburshed to make her look slimmer in her photos for a Campari calendar. No, I'm not mad that she was retouched. I fully expect some digital airbursh magic in any and all celebrity publicity photos and the like. Everyone wants the full glamour treatment---smooth skin, bright eyes, etc. We all expect to see that.

What makes my blood boil is that the "before" picture was beautiful. This woman had a baby in June, and she looks amazing! Look at the picture above (an UNretouched red carpet shot) and tell me why on earth she would need to look any slimmer. While I can't show the before and after pics from the calendar here, trust me when I say that the after pic is nearly skeletal. Whoever did the retouching made sure to highlight (and even create out of thin air) every possible bone that could be made to look like it sticks out.

So now, even with celebrities' generous genetics, personal trainers, personal chefs, personal assistants, nannies, and plastic surgeons on speed dial....they're still not good enough?? They need to be digitally nipped, tucked, slimmed, and perfected even further? Where does that leave the rest of us?

I'm all for giving nature a little bit of help here and there. I wouldn't be your guide to plastic surgery if I wasn't down with that. But when is "perfect" perfect enough? If you ask me, this whole world is starting to come down with a collective case of body dysmorphic disorder. Stop the madness, please!