The Real Legacy Of ‘ANTM’ Was Showing Young People How To Hate Their Bodies

“You wanna be on top?” Tyra Banks sang at the camera as upbeat music played in the background.

As a teenager, I was excited to hear the theme song come on TV. My mom and I sat eagerly on the leather couch with our snacks as an episode started.

At the time, I remember thinking that it was just an entertaining reality show. In fact, it was something that I looked forward to watching every week. I watched many seasons of the show.

Now, watching Netflix’s “America’s Next Top Model” documentary through the lens of what I know about eating disorders, trauma and body image, it is hard not to feel a deep sense of anger and sadness.

“ANTM” didn’t create a fatphobic culture. It was a microcosm of the early 2000s diet culture that was pervasive everywhere at the time. However, by reflecting the thin ideal, it did amplify and glamorize that standard. I believe this created real harm for a generation of women (and people of all genders) growing up.

On the show, contestants were shamed and scrutinized. One clip showed Tyra scolding a contestant for “not having a perfectly flat stomach” and suggesting that she “more carefully watch her food.” I won’t go into the details of her suggestion, so as not to trigger others.

“ANTM” praised extreme thinness and made it seem as though anything other than that was a moral failing. It was all about doing anything to alter your appearance to meet the ideals and send the message that your appearance was the most valuable thing about you. Tyra also gave all of the girls forced “makeovers,” which often ended in tears — with one contestant in the documentary upset about being pressured to close the gap in her teeth.

Tyra did include “plus-size” models before this was common in the industry. However, these models were often othered and placed into humiliating situations, such as being expected to participate in shoots without clothing available in their size. Additionally, what she and the industry at the time labeled as “plus-size” did not reflect how bodies of those sizes are viewed outside of high-fashion spaces. Women wearing those sizes would not have been considered plus-size in everyday contexts.

“ANTM” and the culture as a whole ingrained in me the message that smaller was better, that I should aim to shrink myself and that my appearance was what mattered. However, it wasn’t until college that everything really spiraled.

“Even as I became more and more fearful of food, people applauded me, praised me and asked how I did it.”

Going to an event in college, I didn’t like how I looked in an outfit, so I decided to go on a diet. That one “diet” would go on to change the trajectory of my whole life.

At first, I got a lot of praise for being on this diet and for losing weight. Even as I became more and more fearful of food, people applauded me, praised me and asked how I did it.

I became fixed on the idea of shrinking myself. I was obsessed with the scale and following my food and exercise rules. Thinking about food and my body took up 80% of my day. I was terrified to eat at restaurants and started isolating myself socially because people kept inviting me to go get food with them.

I didn’t realize that I had an eating disorder at first, because I thought that an eating disorder diagnosis was reserved for people who looked emaciated, and people kept telling me that I “looked great.” It’s important to note that less than 6% of people with eating disorders are medically diagnosed as underweight. You cannot look at someone and know if they are struggling with an eating disorder.

Eventually, I sought help from an eating disorder therapist and was diagnosed with anorexia. (I later suffered other eating disorder symptoms as well.)

Developing an eating disorder was honestly a huge surprise to me. I hardly knew anything about eating disorders at the time, and never imagined that I would seriously struggle with one. Growing up, I had a normal relationship with food.

For me and others struggling with eating disorders, a “perfect storm” of factors came together to change that. Mine included a close family member who’d had anorexia, which gave me the genetic component, my struggles with perfectionism, past trauma and anxiety — and the broader cultural climate I grew up in, which of course included “America’s Next Top Model.”

In the “ANTM” documentary, contestant Keenyah Hill shares that she has since heard from viewers that the way her body was discussed on the show actually kick-started their eating disorders, a sobering reminder of how televised body shaming doesn’t stay on the screen. While media alone isn’t responsible for causing eating disorders, it may trigger those with a genetic predisposition or other factors to develop one.

After years of work with an eating disorder therapist, recovery coach and eating disorder dietitian, I was able to recover from my eating disorder.

Sitting here today, viewing the “ANTM” documentary on a gray velvet couch, I am an eating disorder therapist, founder of The Eating Disorder Center and a married mom of two little kids.

My perspective while watching the show has very much shifted from that of the 16-year-old girl who was viewing “ANTM” from my parents’ house. Twenty years later, many of us can now see just how toxic that show and the general culture of the 2000s were when it came to the dieting and anti-fat bias in the media.

Unfortunately, it is my belief that 20 years from now, we will be looking back on the present day with similar discomfort. I wish we could look back and talk about how much has improved, but there is still so far to go.

Extreme thinness is being promoted in the media, and weight loss (now often aided by GLP-1s like Ozempic) continues to be praised. Today, the “Make America Healthy Again” movement is touting harmful rhetoric demonizing processed foods and promoting a very black-and-white mentality.

I truly hope for the sake of my children and others that the “ANTM” documentary serves as a wake-up call. Just because something is normalized in society doesn’t mean it is mentally or physically healthy. We truly need to look with a critical eye at how our society continues to promote anti-fat bias and diet culture. The next generation needs us to do better.

Jennifer Rollin, MSW, LCSW-C, is a therapist and the founder of The Eating Disorder Center. She specializes in therapy for teens and adults with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, OSFED and body image concerns.