Tyra Banks Says 'So What?'

ByABC News via logo
April 28, 2007, 12:15 PM

April 26, 2007 — -- How many of us can say we're happy with our looks? According to the numbers, not many: Americans spent a staggering $12 billion last year on plastic surgery.

"Good Morning America" went out to the streets of New York City to talk to women about their looks, and just about every one of them named something they didn't like about their bodies, from their eyebrows and lips to their thighs and feet.

Talk show host and model Tyra Banks is on a mission to change that attitude. After a photo of her in a swimsuit at the beach caused a tabloid frenzy, she launched a campaign promoting positive body images for women called "So What."

Banks, who has just been named to this year's People magazine "100 Most Beautiful People" list, said that her "So What" campaign was about women not obsessing about their flaws.

"For instance I have cellulite on the back of my butt. Now I'm starting to get it on my stomach and I don't like it," Banks said on "GMA." "But I don't stay up at night obsessing about it."

Banks and a correspondent for her show Danielle Fishel also inspired hundreds of women to join in a "Belly Brigade" march through the streets of Los Angeles. They donned red tube tops with their bellies showing.

"My doctor had told me that the stretch marks that I had gotten were probably the worst case that she has ever seen," Fishel said. "And no I don't feel comfortable in a two-piece bathing suit. But you know what, so what."

Banks showed a life-size cardboard cutout of a runway model on her show. The emaciated model's stats said she was 5 feet, 11 inches and a size 2. She was estimated to weigh 90 pounds.

Though she was a top model, Banks was always heavier than many other models.

"At one point in my career I was 128, which is 32 pounds less than I weigh now," she said, "and my modeling agencies and designers still told me that I needed to lose weight."

She said today that her weight fluctuated between 150 and 161, and that she'd work to lose weight for certain occasions and appearances.