14 DAY TRIAL // Health and wellness magazine Healthy has gone where no other magazine has gone before by digitally altering the photo of the cover model to make her look fatter, instead of skinnier. Editor Jane Druke has confirmed for the British media that model Kamilla Wladyka’s photo had to be “drastically” altered because, ironically enough, the magazine did not want to mislead its readers, 9 MSN informs.
When asked about why they chose the model in the first place if she was so skinny, Druke says Kamilla seemed fine during the casting. However, later on, as she came at the photoshoot, she appeared so emaciated that few of the clothes they had prepared for her looked good on her, as bones stuck out of them. Because of this and given that she’d already been signed for the job, Druke had artists retouch the photo until Kamilla appeared somewhat heavier and healthier.
“Sometimes when you cast a model, they look okay, but then when they turn up on the shoot day they might not have eaten for two or three days. You’re not in charge of their health. When she did arrive, there were plenty of clothes that we couldn’t put on her because her bones stuck out too much. She looked beautiful in the face, but really thin and unwell,” Druke says of how Kamilla had lost weight before the photoshoot.
Because of this, her photo had to be altered to make her look 15 to 20 kg fatter, since her size-4 frame did not correspond to the magazine’s philosophy on a healthy life. “We made her legs a little bit bigger, to make her look like she was a size 10 as opposed to a size 4. It’s not what we normally do and I would never want to mislead people,” Druke adds, as cited by the same publication.
Understandably, this admission of guilt in terms of altering the image of the Polish model has generated more controversy instead of helping things calm down. Eleni Renton of Leni’s Model Management, for instance, tells the British media that it’s not the girl who’s necessarily at fault, as part of the blame lies with the magazine’s policy as regards unhealthy weight. Instead of retouching her photo, they should have sent the model home, telling her they believed something was wrong with her, Renton thinks.