Did you know that most photographs in glossy mags undergo up to 30 hours of digital retouching before being published? Are you aware that the impossibly long legs of many fashion models are just that...impossibly long because they have been digitially altered?

On 26 April, 32 year-11 girls from across Victoria will come to the Centre to learn how the digital retouching prevalent in today's media creates unrealistic and unattainable beauty ideals.

The Young Women, Media and the Digital Age Forum - presented by QVWC with the support of Office for Youth, Teenagers - Go for your Life Positive Body Image Strategy - aims to empower young women by providing them with a better understanding of vital body image issues and revealing the unrealistic beauty ideals most media present.

The Young Women, Body Image and the Digital Age Forum recently received coverage in the Herald-Sun as an important way of empowering young women.

Led by the FRANK Team, the forum participants will discuss body image issues with the Butterfly Foundation, learn about how to be peer educators and leaders and see first hand from a graphic designer how digital images are altered to create impossible beauty ideals. The girls will take the information they learn back to their schools, where they will present it to their peers in a creative format of their choosing. The girls will be aided in their presentations by in-school mentors, who will attend a workshop on body image and media literacy on 26 April.

QVWC believes that by demystifying the digital retouching that occurs behind-the-scenes of today's media, young women are empowered to make informed decisions about the media they consume and the beauty ideals in which they believe.

Take our Body Image, Media, and Digital Imaging Survey and go into the draw to win a $25 Angus and Robertson Gift Voucher (extended until 27 April).

Find out more about the Young Women, Body Image and the Digital Age project.