Reality show host and supermodel, Tyra Banks has jumped on the plus-size bandwagon as she has announced this week that she’s holding a contest on her talk show that will feature teen plus-size models. To enter the competition the contestants must be between the ages of 13 to 19 years old and have a dress size of 12 to 20 and stand 5′9″- 6′1″ tall. She told Us Magazine,

“I’ve always felt it was my mission to expand the narrow perceptions of beauty…. I challenge industry and universal standards by featuring and celebrating non-traditional beauty, and stressing that true beauty is both inside and out.”

Tyra went on to explain that she doesn’t like the ‘negative connotation’ that is sensed when we hear or see the word ‘plus-size’ so she wants young women to see and understand that the word ‘plus-size’ is actually average when it comes to the American women’s body. She continued,

“Adolescence is such an impressionable time in a young woman’s life, and I hope this contest helps teen girls discover their own beauty from the inside out.”

The finalists will be on the March 2 episode of the Tyra Banks Show and the winner will get a a year long modeling contract and a spread in a fashion magazine.

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Former supermodel and reality tv mogul Tyra Banks has been filming America’s Next Top Model episodes in New Zealand over the past couple of weeks. While there, she took time out to give a speech at the launch of a new beauty campaign, Global Beauty Inside & Out. She gave an emotional speech as she encouraged young women to love themselves from the inside and the outside and she even got teary-eyed. She said,

“I apologize for the emotion but I am my mother’s daughter and my mama cries at everything.”

Tyra, who has always been vocal about weight, lost four dress sizes during 2009 after she had put on a considerable amount of weight after leaving the modeling world. In Tyra’s speech she told the audience about the day when her mother was handed a list of fashion designers who no longer wanted to work with the model because of her weight. At that moment her mother said to her daughter,

“And now we’re going to go get pizza.”

It was that day that Tyra decided she wanted to be the same type of role model for girls around the world that her mother was for her.

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Last month, model and TV show host Tyra Banks revealed her new body after losing four dress sizes (30 pounds). Over the past couple of years she was leaning on the chubby side but after hard work and dedication she looks like she’s ready for another Sports Illustrated Bikini Issue photo shoot. This week on her show she gets to the nitty-gritty of her weight loss secrets and the fact of the matter is that there was no crazy dieting involved. It was about her exercise plan and managing her eating habits. She says,

“This is a lifestyle change. It’s not about being skinny. It’s about getting in the best shape that you can be.”

During the show Banks confessed that she was having painful, chronic stomachaches that would have her in bed for days. So, she decided to enlist the help of a nutritionist to change her unhealthy habits into healthy ones. Nutritionist Heather Bauer had Banks keep a food journal to identify those foods that make her feel good and those that don’t. On the show this week, Bauer gives the audience some sample lunch and dinner menus and healthy fast food options. Banks chimes in,

“It’s about working with what you’ve got, and knowing and learning what’s right for your body.”

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Two years ago, fashion model and TV host Tyra Banks hit the headlines as her weight was creeping up the scales. She received international criticism with articles titled, ‘Tyra Pork Chop’ and ‘America’s Next Top Waddle.’  At the time she brushed off the critisicm and claimed that she loved her body and defended her fuller figure on national television by wearing a swimsuit on her show.  At the height of the criticism she told People Magazine,

“I still feel hot, but every day is different. It’s when I put on the jeans that used to fit a year ago and don’t fit now and give me the muffin top, that’s when I say, ‘Damn!’”

Tyra maintained her heavy weight by eating heavy meals such as burgers and pizza and she admits to eating a lot of ice cream and salad with plenty of ranch dressing, croutons and bacon bits.

But now that Tyra has lost 30 pounds and dropped four sizes it’s obvious that she looks healthier and she seems to be happier too. She recently said,

“I might be doing a little TMI (too much information) – I always feel great when I don’t have clothes on.”

In this photo of her recent photo shoot in NYC, Banks is glowing once again like she did in her modeling days.  Since so many young girls watch her shows, hopefully she will be good role model and maintain her new healthy size and not get bone thin.

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Tennis champ Serena Williams is on the Tyra Banks show this week where she talks about her body image issues and weight concerns all to promote her new book, On The Line. During the interview Williams emphasized the importance of being positive even if other people criticize you because of weight or abilities. She explained that when she lost her No. 1 ranking and had to have surgery everyone started accusing her of being fat.

She soon realized that she shouldn’t read the newspapers and even though she clips out the articles as a keepsake she doesn’t read them. She said,

“You have to enjoy what you look like,” she said. “Sometimes I read things [that say] I’m too fit or my arms are too muscular, but that’s how I am. This is me, I love me. I think every person out there — man, woman, regardless of age or gender — needs to love themselves.”

As for Williams’ new memoir, she told Banks that it tells the story of her journey in dealing with the situation of her weight, the death of her half-sister and how she handled getting back into the game even when people doubted her.

“They said I’d never be No. 1, they said I’d never win another grand slam.”

They were wrong. What an amazing woman.
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Supermodel, talk show host and all-round diva Tyra Banks shared the secret to her recent weight loss. And no, it’s not the media lambasting her in the tabloids that prompted her to drop the weight. It was watching reruns of Sex and the City episodes.

Banks revealed on her talk show this week that she got rid of one of her couches in the TV room, rolled in a new treadmill and elliptical machine and popped in the DVDs.

“I got rid of one of my couches in my living room and I watched Sex and The City episodes on the treadmill or the elliptical. So Sex and the City lasts 30 minutes – that’s how long I’m on the elliptical.”

The sudden change to her lifestyle was driven by a private challenge she and a few friends had undertaken to see who could get fit the fastest. Unfortunately the media blew things out of proportion.

“I felt kind of exposed because I wasn’t trying to proclaim to the world ‘I got fit and I got healthy and I got in shape’,” she says in the episode.

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Tyra is back and looking better than ever, since the infamous unflattering photos of her in a bathing suit created a firestorm on the tabloid and celebrity website circuit a couple months ago. Rumored to have tipped the scales at 170 lbs in December, she admitted having gained some 30 lbs since her modeling days. She went on a public relations blitz, appearing on the cover of People magazine and devoting a whole episode to the great “weight debate” on her Tyra Banks show. As these new photos reveal she is back in super-model form. How did she do it?

Discussing her weight gain on Extra in January, she admitted to enjoying an “IHOP breakfast, a burger or pizza for lunch and steak and some sort of sweet come dinnertime.” In the latest issue of In Touch weekly she reflects “I needed to take better care of myself.” Tyra’s diet and exercise plan for losing an estimated 30 lbs in five months and getting back in shape included:

• Hiring a chef to cook healthy meals.
• Cooking soup dishes for herself, from her favorite cookbook 400 Best-Ever Soups by Anne Sheasby. Losing weight with soup, is a diet tip also used by Cameron Diaz to maintain her starlet figure.
• Engaging in high intensity interval training which includes running and walking on a treadmill.

Way to go Tyra!