14 DAY TRIAL // An aspiring model named Ann, whose waist is so impossibly small a man can encircle it and touch his hands on either side, is featured in a new trailer for America’s Next Top Model, thus reigniting the skinny debate.
Though host Tyra Banks, a woman to whom modeling literally has any secrets, has mostly a pro-curves attitude, she can be seen admitting in the trailer she likes Ann.
Useless to say, critics point out, the girl can’t possibly be as healthy as she claims and acceptance of her tiny frame in front of the camera can equal acceptance of her eating disorder – therefore encouragement to continue untreated.
Not few are the voices heard all over the web saying that either Ann’s inclusion on the latest season of the show is a sick joke, or that she’s only been accepted because Banks is desperate to boost ratings for ANTM.
Ann is 6’2”, wants to be a model and claims to have the smallest waist in the world, a claim one can hardly refute. Her frame is so tiny that a man can encircle her waist perfectly with the hands (not the arms, mind you), as the video below will confirm.
According to The Styleist, having her on the show is sending out a very twisted message to all young girls out there, including that being this skinny is healthy or something they should aspire to and strive to achieve.
The outrage in the media and the public is even greater since, as noted above, Tyra is usually the one who comes to the defense of women with curves, being one herself.
“Our reaction, if we saw this stick-thin waif on the street? We’d grab her, drag her to the nearest Denny’s, and force one Grand Slam breakfast after another down her throat. But that’s just us,” the aforementioned fashion e-zine writes.
Tyra may be after the big ratings with her open approval of the waif-like model, but she’s only coming across as too desperate for ratings. While ANTM has pushed boundaries before in its journey to find a top model, this time it’s going about it the wrong way, The Styleist goes on to say.
“While the show has featured a number of plus-size models and ‘unconventional’ contestants (blind, transgender, Asperger’s, you name it), those stories had an inspirational, defying-the-odds slant. Not so inspirational? Seeing judges drool (or pretend to drool) over a skeletal girl in an industry that already worships unrealistic size zero frames,” the e-zine says.
“And though we’ve argued in the past that it’s unfair to cast thin models as unhealthy, just as it's unfair to assume that a plus-size model is one Big Mac away from a heart attack, and that some people are just naturally skinny, if Ann is 6’2” it seems unlikely that she’s anywhere near the healthy weight for her height,” The Styleist further says.
Below is the video that caused all this: you be the judge.
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