Set your Tivo for Tyra Banks as she talks about the "fat photos" and to Ana Carolina Reston's mom

Get your TIVOs ready. Tomorrow, Feb. 1, Tyra Banks is going to talk about the "thinness mania" in the modeling industry. She will have on her show 4 models including one plus-sized model and one who weighs 88 lbs and still thinks she needs to lose weight. Also interviewed will be a young woman currently suffering from anorexia, and the mother of Ana Carolina Reston, the Brazilian model who died of anorexia.

In my opinion, the title of this show should have been called something like, "The Pressure to be thin, a model's view." Instead, it's called "Tyra Confronts Her Tabloid Photos" referring to, and obviously capitalizing on, all this hooplah about her weight gain, and the unflattering pictures of her in a bathing suit on vacation. Tyra will consequently wear the bathing suit in said pictures on the show, and then show us her own original untouched pictures.

I'm trying hard to like Tyra but why in this case does she have to put the emphasis on herself? I get that it's her show, but here is a bigger issue at hand with all the unrealistic beauty obsession, and she is just one of its, albeit famous, sufferers. Focus on the 1,000ft view Tyra, not the 10ft one.

I am very interested in hearing what Ana Carolina's mother has to say. My heart goes out to this mother who lost her daughter.

[The Tyra Banks show]

Comments

[kerrianne]

I do indeed like your title better, but Tyra is, well, Tyra. I've got to give her this: She has one rocking bathing suit.

[Manola BBB]

I really liked what Tyra had to say on Larry King the other night. She used the issue about herself as a springboard to discuss the matter on a broader basis and it sounds like this could be similar for the show. I don't see why she wouldn't take advantage of all the hoopla, especially since it supports her cause. I think by sheer juxtaposition the ridiculousness of the Tyra's story will make that poor girl's death seem all the more serious.

[Lara]

Hmm... resembles a phone call I got a few weeks ago :(

[Marybeth]

I have a hard time with Tyra's new fatitude. Yes, the media really beat the hell out of her. But at the same time, this is a woman who made millions of dollars portraying this body idea by one of the worst perpetrators in the industry - Victoria's Secret. And then with America's Top Model, again she fed the industry that is now seemingly turning against her.

It hurts her feelings to be called fat? Well duh. And yet again, how many women did her former profession inspire to look in the mirror and call themselves fat?

We grow. We evolve. I have been a longtime fan of Tyra, since her Fresh Prince days. She always struck me as far more real. I never got a diva impression of her. But I do have difficulty with all of her talk about how much this hurts her feelings.

I don't know. I am setting my TiVo now.

[Stephanie Quilao]

It will be fascinating to see how Tyra pulls this show off. I'm crossing my fingers that she will do a good job of getting the message across of how dangerous things are getting in relation to this need to be thin to be pretty.