14 DAY TRIAL // The other day, Tyra Banks announced the winner for the 15th season of America’s Next Top Model and, to most people’s surprise, it was Ann Ward, the model who caused quite a stir earlier this year for having a waist that an adult can encircle with two hands.
Ever since the preview for the show aired in August, showing how Ann’s waist was impossibly thin – so thin it could be encircled with two hands (hands, not arms) – the debate on whether she was too skinny never really died down.
Throughout the show, both Ann and Tyra have struggled to make the rumors stop by saying she’d always been very lean – and very tall as well, there was no eating disorder to attribute her weight to.
Even so, her winning the show does raise the question of the message that is sent to all other impressionable teens and women in general, not necessarily hoping for an acting career, TheStir points out.
Ann walks from ANTM with $100,000 from CoverGirl, a spread in the Italian Vogue and, most important of all, a one-year modeling gig – but it’s the actually winning of ANTM that’s getting people all riled up.
By winning such a popular television model competition, even if everybody got it clear that she doesn’t have an eating disorder and she takes good care of her health, the message is that this is actually the ideal of beauty all women must aspire to, TheStir says.
“I find the fashion-spread images of her to be borderline disturbing to look at, and I can’t quite wrap my head around the idea that her body should be used to represent a beauty ideal – especially when 8 million Americans are estimated to have an eating disorder,” the e-zine says.
More voices online are saying that ANTM is sending the wrong message to women by choosing Ann as the winner – again, even assuming that she’s healthy and this is simply her natural weight.
Tyra Banks, on the other hand, is adamant the show is about beauty regardless of shape, age or color – and Ann, a girl who admitted being bullied as a teen for her stature and thin frame, is the perfect example of that.
“I am committed to expanding the definition of beauty which includes ALL shapes, sizes, and proportions, from skinny to curvy and everything in between,” Tyra says in the winner’s defense.
“It’s about women telling the world to KISS their... skinny, wide, droopy, flat, cellulite-covered, or FAT ... you know what!” the former supermodel adds.
Below are some highlights from the season 15 finale of America’s Next Top Model. You be the judge.