In the September issue of Glamour, a nude photograph of plus-size model Lizzi Miller caused quite a stir—a very positive one, that is. Often referred to as “the woman on page 194” Glamour apparently received massive amounts of positive feedback about seeing the “naked and adorably pot-bellied” Miller, as Kate Harding refers to her in an online forum. There was so much positive feedback that Glamour has decided to do it again: according the New York Post, plus-size models Crystal Renn, Anansa Sims, Ashley Graham, Jennie Runk, Kate Dillon and Amy Lemons have been photographed, along with Miller, in the buff by Matthias Vriens and will appear in the November issue of Glamour.

Initially, I was pretty jazzed about this. This is a mainstream magazine breaking the mold of what women are expected to look like, right? Any sign of body diversity being accepted and celebrated is a good thing, right?

Then I actually looked at pictures of these women.

Maybe they are not a size zero, but they are still MODELS.

I desperately want to be pleased that this may be a sign of change stirring in the modeling industry. I am happy that many of the readers of Glamour felt strongly enough about Lizzi Miller’s photograph to let the magazine know that they enjoyed seeing her picture. It pleases me to think that perhaps some women looked at this beautiful model and saw a woman who looked a little more like them than the rest of the models photographed in the magazine.

I want to celebrate, but I can’t help but think that Glamour and everybody else needs to get over it. As a woman who has never yet struggled with her weight, I don’t see “real women” who look like me or the women I know in these photos. I don’t see women with acne or fat asses. I don’t see slouching or cankles. I don’t see stringy hair or frizzy hair. I don’t see uneven ears or boobs that are saggy. I don’t see weird knees or big noses. If there wasn’t such a stir about these “fat” women, the fact that they are larger than a size six would have been at the very bottom of the list of things I noticed. I see tall, beautifully proportioned women with flawless skin, radiant hair and expensive, professionally coordinated clothing. I see women who look like I never will.

The really ironic thing about this is that these women themselves will never really look like their own photos, either. In the May 2009 edition of Harper’s Bazaar Australia, Crystal Renn, one of the models photographed for Glamour, had her own photos shown. In them all, she looks like a … model. And we all know how I feel about that. The pictures were reposted on the Australian blog “Corpulent,” with one extra picture included. This photo of Renn has no retouching, revealing that the model has—drum roll please—cellulite.

What else has been touched up on these models? What else was hidden? While they were at it, why didn’t they just “touch up” Miller’s potbelly and be done with it all? Really seeing the effect that retouching has on these photos drove home for me that they are nothing more than subversive (and admittedly beautiful) lies.

Lying to ourselves and to the people around us on this scale for a long enough time will be nothing but devastating. I, like many other people reading this, saw the destructive power of these lies firsthand when I watched a close friend struggle with bulimia a few years ago.

I do not want to oversimplify eating disorders by blaming them all on societal input. They are very complicated diseases that are difficult to struggle with, or watch others struggle with. It is possible and maybe even likely that if she had not chosen her weight as a way to fight her unhappiness, she would have found another.

I can’t help but wonder, however, how much of an effect the deceitful images of women we have been fed had on her. Did she choose this as an outlet for her pain because she believed that looking like a model would make her happy?

If we stick with that line of logic for a bit, however fallible it may be, then doesn’t it seem to make sense that making plus-size models the norm would eliminate some of the deceitfulness of these photos?

I’m still not convinced of that. Her disease wasn’t just about being skinny—she most definitely achieved that. The scariest thing about her struggle was that she could never win. Getting thinner didn’t help her stop thinking about all of the other things she didn’t like about herself, whether it be her physical appearance or otherwise. But her weight was the only thing that she knew how to control.

Featuring plus-size models might be a step in the right direction, but its not a holistic solution. I would love to see a society where women who are dealing with the deep, intense, difficult pain that drives them to eating disorders don’t have a physical standard to compare themselves to and are instead encouraged to be comfortable with their bodies and find healthier ways to cope. Every life lost to an eating disorder is one too many.

The fact that Glamour or Harper’s Bazaar or any other magazine is being celebrated for photographing plus-size models only highlights the sorry state of our modern media. Magazines that run pictures of these models are the exceptions for showing “fat” girls, but still follow all of the other contrived rules when it comes to showing what women should be expected to look like. Why is it all right that showing a picture of a digitally altered, overtly sexualized, outrageously idealized woman who just happens to be over a size six means that you deserve a pat on the back?