The French parliament has held its first hearing of a proposed law that would require every advertisement to display a disclaimer telling the public that images of people were manipulated. The goal is to help cut down on body issues in adolescents, and violating the law could be costly.

Lawmakers are concerned about the effect that Photoshopping has on people's body images. As a result, one such member of parliament, Valerie Boyer, has proposed a law that would require enhanced images to sport a warning, making it clear that viewers are not looking at an unretouched image.

A proponent of anorexia and bulimia awareness within the French government, Boyer believes that the disclaimer would help bring youngsters back to reality and promote a healthier body image for all. These photos can lead people to believe in a reality that does not actually exist, and have a detrimental effect on adolescents, Boyer said in a statement this week: It's not just a question of public health, but also a way of protecting the consumer.

It's not just Boyer who believes this, either. Fifty other French politicians have gotten behind the proposed law, which would require all enhanced photographs to read: Photograph retouched to modify the physical appearance of a person. This would not only apply to advertisements, it would also apply to press photos, political campaigns, art photography, and photos on product packaging.

Airbrushed adverts of thin-ideal models pose a significant risk to the health of young women, claim 'experts'.

Women's daily exposure to images of perfection is linked to depression, insecurity and eating disorders, says a study by 40 doctors, psychologists and academics.

The findings have sparked fresh calls for the Advertising Standards Authority to clamp down on airbrushed pictures. So far the ASA has said there is not enough evidence that such images do harm.

The Impact of Media Images on Body Image and Behaviours report said: Body dissatisfaction is a significant risk for physical health, mental health, and thus well-being. Any factor, such as idealised images, that increases body dissatisfaction is thus an important influence on well-being. It added that exposure to thin-ideal images produced significant increases in self-reported depression, stress, guilt, shame, insecurity and body dissatisfaction.

Not So Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson, who has campaigned against airbrushing, said the ASA now has all the scientific evidence it needs to act.

We received identical complaints about a magazine ad for the Olay Definity eye illuminator from over 700 members of the public who complained via a website campaign. Their complaints were forwarded to the ASA by Jo Swinson MP. We also received a complaint from a member of the public who contacted us directly. All the complainants challenged whether the ad was misleading because they believed the image of Twiggy had been digitally re-touched; the people who complained as part of Jo Swinson's campaign also complained that the ad was socially irresponsible.

A magazine ad for the Olay Definity eye illuminator featured an image of the model Twiggy. A testimonial adjacent to her stated Olay is my secret to brighter-looking eyes!. Further text stated Because younger-looking eyes never go out of fashion. Olay Definity eye illuminator. Reduces the look of wrinkles and dark circles for brighter, younger-looking eyes. Issue

1. Many complainants, who had forwarded their complaints to Jo Swinson MP as part of a website campaign, objected that the ad was misleading and socially irresponsible. They believed the image of Twiggy had been digitally retouched and the use of post-production techniques could have a negative impact on peoples perceptions of their own body image.

2. One complainant, who contacted the ASA directly, objected that the ad was misleading, because it implied that Twiggys appearance in the ad was achieved solely through the use of Olay Definity rather than with the assistance of photographic post-production.

ASA Decision: 1. & 2. Upheld

The ASA noted the original ad seen by the complainants had been withdrawn and replaced with one that did not have re-touching around Twiggys eyes. We acknowledged that advertisers were keen to present their products in their most positive light using techniques such as post-production enhancement and the re-touching of images. However, we considered that the post-production re-touching of this ad, specifically in the eye area, could give consumers a misleading impression of the effect the product could achieve. We considered that the combination of references to younger-looking eyes, including the claim Reduces the look of wrinkles and dark circles for brighter, young-looking eyes, and post-production re-touching of Twiggys image around the eye area was likely to mislead.

Notwithstanding that, we considered that consumers were likely to expect a degree of glamour in images for beauty products and would therefore expect Twiggy to have been professionally styled and made-up for the photo shoot, and to have been photographed professionally. We also noted the ad appeared in a magazine that targeted mature women and considered that readers of Good Housekeeping magazine and the Sunday Times Style Supplement would understand that the ad set out to associate the well-known mature female model with a brand, and would not infer that Twiggys appearance in the ad was achieved solely through the use of Olay Definity. We concluded that, in the context of an ad that featured a mature model likely to appeal to women of an older age group, the image was unlikely to have a negative impact on perceptions of body image among the target audience and was not socially irresponsible.

Spain has stepped up its fight against what the government sees as forces that push girls into anorexia or bulimia, with the introduction of a law banning so-called cult of the body advertising on television before the Spanish watershed.

Sellers of plastic surgery, slimming products and some beauty treatments will be prevented from advertising before 10pm.

The ban is extended to other advertisers who transmit a message to children that what matters most is how they look, or that their chances of success are linked to the type of body they have. The ban comes in a new broadcasting law that has been approved by the lower chamber of parliament and is being reviewed by the upper house.

It states: Broadcasters cannot carry advertisements for things that encourage the cult of the body and have a negative impact on self-image – such as slimming products, surgical procedures and beauty treatments – which are based on ideas of social rejection as a result of one's physical image or that success is dependent on factors such as weight or looks.

The beauty and hygiene sector is the third biggest spender on TV advertising in Spain – it spent about €500m in 2008. That year, TV stations broadcast 7,000 advertisements for dieting products and special treatments for slimming, cellulitis or other body worship products, as they are known in Spain. A further 55,000 advertising slots went to beauty products.

Children are being sexualised from an increasingly early age by computer games, pornography and sex-related slogans, a government report will warn.

The study was written by clinical psychologist Dr Linda Papadopoulos for the Home Office. She said: Little boys are always told 'aren't you clever, aren't you strong'. Little girls are told 'aren't you pretty?' even in 2010. They are adhering to what society expects and internalising behaviours.

Papadopoulos cited the example of the computer game Miss Bimbo, where the aim of the game is to accumulate boob jobs and marry a billionaire.

The report, due out later this month, will suggest imposing age restrictions on lads' magazine such as Zoo and Nuts and introducing a symbol to signify when a image in a magazine has been airbrushed.

Papadopoulos told the Times Educational Supplement: It's a drip-drip effect. Look at porn stars and look at how the average girls looks now. We are hypersexualising girls, telling them their desirability relies on being desired. They want to please at any cost. And we are hypermasculinising boys. Many feel they can't live up to the porn ideal, sleeping with lots of women.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: We know that many parents are concerned about the pressures that their teenage and even pre-teen daughters are under to appear sexually available at a younger and younger age, and about the negative impact this may be having on boys too.

Kate Ellis kindly photoshopped by Melon Faermers

Australian magazines could be forced to carry disclaimers on any images that have been airbrushed after the government unveiled a new strategy to tackle body image and eating disorders.

Under a new code of conduct for the fashion industry, magazines must agree to refrain from heavy retouching of body parts, including the common practices of lengthening legs, removing freckles and trimming waistlines. Where photographs have been altered, the images must carry a disclaimer.

In return for agreeing to the guidelines, publications will be awarded with a body image tick, similar to the Heart Foundation's healthy food symbol.

Under the same plan, the government wants designers, advertising companies and magazines to refrain from using size-zero female models and excessively muscular male models in photoshoots or fashion shows.

While the code is voluntary, it is one of most strident moves by any country to tackle the problem of eating disorders, which 'experts' claim are triggered by unrealistic images of beauty found in film, fashion and advertising.

Kate Ellis, the Australian youth minister, admitted that the principles were small steps but said that she hoped they would help to stop the glamorisation of unhealthily thin women: Body image is an issue that we must take seriously because it is affecting the health and happiness of substantial sections of our community, she spouted.

The UK government is to put the fashion industry under pressure to stop promoting unrealistic body images and clamp down on airbrushed photographs in magazines and adverts.

Lynne Featherstone, the inequalities minister, who has long campaigned against size-zero photoshoots, will convene a series of discussions this autumn with the fashion industry, including magazine editors and advertising executives, to discuss how to promote body confidence among young people.

The first will focus on airbrushing, which Featherstone argues is contributing to the dreadful pressure that young people, girls and women come under to conform to completely unachievable body stereotypes.

She will push for a Kitemark or health warning on airbrushed photographs, warning viewers that they are not real. I am very keen that children and young women should be informed about airbrushing, so they don't fall victim to looking at an image and thinking that anyone can have a 12in waist. It is so not possible, she told the Sunday Times.

The minister wants to see more women of different shapes and sizes used in magazine photoshoots, including curvaceous role models such as Christina Hendricks, who plays vivacious office manager Joan Holloway in Mad Men, the US TV series about the 1960s advertising industry.

Christina Hendricks is absolutely fabulous. We need more of those role models, she said. Instead, young girls and women were continually confronted with false images of incredibly thin women, which could create lifelong psychological damage. [Perhaps we'll then get a generation of girls feeling inferior over an impossible dream of boobs like Hendricks].

She is trying to convince magazine editors and advertisers to stop using digitally altered photographs and underweight models. Advertisers and magazine editors have a right to publish what they choose...BUT...women and girls also have the right to be comfortable in their own bodies. At the moment, they are being denied that, she said.

Magazines that do retouch pictures run the risk of breaking their own code of conduct, which states they should not publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, she added. Magazines regularly mislead their readers by publishing distorted images that have been secretly airbrushed and altered.

She also called the actions of the advertising industry into question. Likewise, the advertising standards code says no advert should place children at risk of mental, physical or moral harm, but adverts do contain airbrushed images of unattainable beauty in magazines aimed at young teenagers.

Sorry girls. The pop star image that you are idolising has been artificially enhanced.

Photoshopped images of models and celebrities should be labelled to ease the damaging pressures on young women to have the perfect figure, thousands of Girl Guides have demanded.

More than 20,000 girls have signed a petition urging Prime Minister David Cameron to force magazines to tell readers when photographs have been enhanced. They claim airbrushing is undermining the self-confidence of an entire generation.

Their petition follows research conducted by Girlguiding UK, which found that 42%of girls aged 11 to 16 admitted dieting to improve their figures. The research also found that half of those aged 16 to 21 would have surgery to improve their looks.

The guides organisation, which has 700,000 members in Britain, is the biggest group so far to support growing criticism of advertisers and the publishing industry for its routine use of heavily doctored photographs. Images are generally retouched to make celebrities or models appear thinner or to remove wrinkles or blemishes.

Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities Minister, said she wanted magazines to stop airbrushing shots or to have some sort of kitemark to show which images were genuine, although she has said she does not want to impose regulations or change the law. She welcomed the campaign by the guides, the biggest membership group for young girls.

Editors have the right to publish whatever pictures they want, but women and girls also have the right to be comfortable in their bodies and at the moment they are being denied that. The fact that 20000 women have signed this petition shows there is a problem here, she said.

Liz Burnley, chief guide, said that a voluntary approach would not work. From our everyday experiences working with girls and young women, we know how profoundly they feel the pressure to conform to a particular image and how badly they can be affected by these unobtainable ideals. We are proud to support our members, who believe that it is time the prime minister addressed their concerns.