Now it’s ‘fat’ and ‘unattractive’ babies who need to be air-brushed.

If not for the mention of babies’ adorable, squishy fat rolls, no one may have noticed.

As members of the viewing and reading public, we tend to understand that magazine cover photos are mussed with, fussed with and retouched so
that everything looks as perfect as it possibly can. Skin tones are smoothed out; large pores are hidden; stray hairs are concealed.

But when a casting director for a UK magazine announced on a British reality show that he had airbrushed a baby’s photo so as to hide the
creases on his chubby little arms, the world came unglued. On both sides of the Atlantic, the practice was decried as shocking — even by
politicians.

A casting director for Practical Parenting magazine explained — on camera — what happened to get Hadley’s photo ready for prime time.

“We lightened his eyes and his general skin tone, smoothed out any blotches and the creases on his arms,” he said. “But we want it to look natural.”

Esther Corbett told the Telegraph that she wasn’t at all bothered — or remotely surprised — about what was done to her son’s photo. “You kind of know that they do it because if you look at the front cover of magazines, most of the images don’t look really real,” she said. “But it didn’t put me off.”

When asked whether the kinds of changes described by the casting director — lightening a baby’s eyes, altering skin tone and smoothing out fat
rolls — are done routinely, Delaney replied: “It is a photograph, isn’t it, so you have to make sure that you are putting the baby across in
the best light.”