Model Behavior

For four years and nine mini-seasons, "America's Next Top Model" has given its viewers -- and its inexperienced contestants -- an inside look at the rigors of the modeling industry. We have seen the models speculate about eating disorders among their peers, seen the judges insist that certain girls need to lose weight to succeed, and have even seen a couple of contestants collapse from exhaustion or dehydration.

Creator/Host Tyra Banks, a longtime supermodel herself, encourages her proteges to live healthy lives -- to eat well, sleep well, and embrace their physical quirks. But this season, she has gone beyond encouragement to insistence that the models set a healthy example for their viewers. In the second episode of the season, the models participated in a photo shoot depicting the dangers of smoking. Each girl was photographed sitting next to a mirror, holding a cigarette and looking as lovely as always. But each was then made-up to reflect a negative side effect of long-term smoking (from facial aging to hair loss from cancer to a tracheotomy), and the negative photo was edited to appear as her reflection in the mirror of the first photo.

The results were eerie and even disturbing. For the first time, upon realizing that a few of this season's contestants are indeed smokers, Banks banned smoking in the Top Model house, saying she did not want young viewers to see models smoking and assume it was acceptable behavior.

Smoking seems to be becoming the exception rather than the rule in America. With entire cities declaring their restaurants and bars smoke-free, and some posting signs beside the doors of buildings asking people not to smoke near building entrances, smokers are becoming outsiders in society. All the better, I say -- perhaps the social stigma will be enough to make the remaining smokers try to quit, if the knowledge of the damage they are doing to their bodies is not convincing enough.

Way to go, Tyra.

(The Top Models' "smoker" photos can be found in the Photos section of the ANTM website. Click on "Model Portfolios" -- the smoker photo will be the second photo in each portfolio.)