model tracker

MTV’s New Model Reality Show Is All About Getting Contestants to Lose Weight

Models backstage at Armani Privè, January 2008.Photo: imaxtree

We were excited when we heard MTV had a model reality show in the works, but we’re not too thrilled about its premise. Model Maker asks girls who are pretty enough to be models but lack the super-thin figure necessary to make it big to lose weight to realize their dreams. A rep for the show told amNY they’ll do so “in a healthy and realistic time span.” Contestants must be between the ages of 17 and 24, five foot nine and six feet tall, and 130 and 190 pounds. A press release about the show reads:

Women come in all shapes and sizes, but models don’t. The term model conjures an image of stick-thin, towering beauties oozing confidence, glamour, poise and sexuality from every pore. “Skinny,” “no body fat,” and “size zero” are the words and phrases associated with models. “Chubby,” “well-fed,” and “big- boned” are not … With weekly eliminations looming, models must put their best foot forward at all times while staying focused on losing weight.

If we may: A girl who weighs 130 pounds at five foot nine tall has very little chance of maintaining a model-size physique healthfully. Doctors will tell you people have a natural weight that they eventually wind up at no matter how much they gain or lose. And we get that some chicks, including many models, are naturally very thin, but there’s probably not a healthy way for a non-twig to maintain such slimness. And considering the high-profile models who have come out recently with their unhealthy weight-loss attempts, why would such a girl want to try? Coco Rocha revealed using diuretics at 108 pounds to lose weight left her doubled over in pain. And who can forget Ali Michael, who said on the Today show that her hair started falling out and she stopped having her period after she starved herself down to 102 pounds, symptoms many models in Paris told her they shared?

The new MTV show is partly the brainchild of model manager Michael Flutie, who will “spearhead the transformations.” The winner gets $100,000, a modeling portfolio, a personal trainer for a year, and most important, “the chance to jumpstart the career of [her] dreams.” You can watch Flutie on the Pensacola and St. Louis local news here, with clueless anchors nodding and smiling like this is all such a good idea. The only good we can imagine coming from this is if it highlights just how dangerous this kind of weight loss really can be.

MTV asks wannabe models to lose weight [amNY]
MODEL MAKERS: a new MTV “Transformation Make-Over” Reality Show [Official site]

Related: CFDA Panel on Skinny Models: Coco Rocha on Her Struggle
Model Ali Michael on ‘Today:’ ‘I Hadn’t Had My Period in Over a Year’

MTV’s New Model Reality Show Is All About Getting Contestants to Lose Weight