Actress Rachael Leigh Cook has joined forces with Academy Award winner Geena Davis, The Creative Coalition, and Girl Scouts of the USA for a Summit in Washington, D.C to address the impact of media images on youth. The group addressed particularly the struggle girls go through reconciling media’s idealized portrayal of women with their own bodies and self-worth.

“I did not grow up getting told about how manipulated the images we see of women and girls out there are, and I think it’s an absolute travesty that young women are seeing what the media is feeding them,” Cook told Pop Tarts. “It breaks my heart to be part of an industry and part of a machine that really pushes out these images and propagates these really terrible standards that are false.”

This is something Cook, 31, can relate to first-hand. After completing her first film “The Babysitter’s Club” at age 15 in 1995, the actress battled her own body image-related demons.

“I remember gaining quite a bit of weight on the first movie that I worked on because, ‘hey, free food!’. You’re at that stage where your body is just changing so actively, so it was a natural change, but I remember finishing that film and realizing that I had gained probably 10 pounds over the course of filming which is a lot when you’re only 5’2,” Cook said. “I knew then that I needed to go and really try and get healthy. I went too far in the other direction and I worried my parents for a while, I think it’s fair to say. I think that it’s something that many, many teenage girls go through, especially ones that are achievers and ambitious. You’re looking for a sense of control, and when you’re in a really transitional phase in your teenage years, I think it’s a pretty normal reaction to develop food issues.”

The “She’s All That” star is now not only urging youth to go online and Google “Photoshop Tutorial” to learn exactly what experts do to the images of all the celebrities and models out there, but she also wants the American public to know that even papparazi snaps aren’t all they’re purported to be.

“Nothing that you see is real, even if you look at what looks like a candid photo of someone, anything can be done. It is false advertising and false advertising is a crime so why isn’t this a crime? I’m just up in arms about it,” Cook added. “People need to know that there are actual lenses that are put on cameras that make people stretched out. If you saw these actors in person, you wouldn’t even recognize them as the people you see on TV. It’s just all a complete illusion and maybe it should be viewed as art, the way that art isn’t real. The way that a picture of a rose can be beautiful, but it’s not a real rose.”

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Robin Bronk: If you had five minutes in the Oval Office with President Obama, what would you discuss with him? What issue would you like him to know about?

Rachel Leigh Cook: I would feel guilty if I didn’t mention the war, the need for job creation and further avenues to advance green technology. But if I had five minutes, I would have to speak about Women Deliver (www.womendeliver.org), a conference I attended recently in D.C. focusing on Millennium Development Goal No. 5 — Improving Maternal Health.

I was shocked by the ramifications for the 20 million women who have no access to family planning or pre- and postnatal care. In developing countries, an estimated half a million women die per year die as a result of childbirth, and the statistics about infant mortality are very bleak as well.
This epidemic troubles me most because it is preventable.

RB: If you could give President Obama one piece of advice, what would that be?
RLC: I wouldn’t call it advice, more of a fervent hope. The word “idealism” is thrown around like a withering epithet these days, but many of us wholly disagree with that connotation. Your dreams of a better world are infectious and inspiring. Please continue to dream big, think big, and don’t let people whose lives are run by fear be the ones to steer our military or economy.

RB: If you could ask President Obama one question, what would that be?
RLC: What do you wish the American people could understand about your position as president and the terrific struggles that come with it?

RB: Would you ever consider a political career?
RLC: Yes. Right after I win a Nobel Prize, complete “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” volumes one through five, learn all the words to “Mack the Knife” and realize my dream of raising alpacas. You did say “consider,” right?

Rachael Leigh Cook began her career as a model at the age of 10 and also appeared in the famous anti-drug TV spot in which, armed with a frying pan, she bashed her way through a kitchen to show the disastrous effects of heroin.

When she reached L.A. in her early teens, Cook nailed her first audition (for the part of a budding entrepreneur in “The Baby-Sitters Club”). She divided her time between Minneapolis and Tinseltown, shuttling from school events to movie shoots with her mother in tow.

Cook’s star status crystallized in 1999, when she starred opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. in the Pygmalion retelling “She’s All That.” Her onscreen transformation from ugly duckling to ravishing beauty won several awards and made Cook a hot commodity in Hollywood. Plum follow-up roles included that of a troubled adolescent in Sylvester Stallone’s “Get Carter,” a frontier gal in “Texas Rangers” and the lead in the live-action version of “Josie and the Pussycats.”

Cook owns her own production company called Ben’s Sister Productions. She’s an activist who travels frequently to Capitol Hill and around the country to encourage public funding for the arts and arts in education.

From The Hill