TYRA BANKS LAUNCHES A SEARCH FOR PLUS SIZE TEEN MODELS!

America's next top model is getting real.
Tyra Banks has announced her latest modeling competition and it's all about plus-sized teens, reports Us magazine. She calls the new competition the first ever "fiercely real" teen model search.

The supermodel-turned-TV-guru talked about the competition during her daytime talk show, "The Tyra Show," on Monday. Any girls between the ages of 13 and 19 are invited to enter, as long as they have a dress size between 12 and 20 and are 5'9" to 6'1" in height.

Unlike "America's Next Top Model," this search won't have the girls going through weeks of grueling photo shoots wearing sky-high stilettos.

The finalists for the competition will be announced during "The Tyra Show" on March 2 and the winner of the first "Fiercely Real Teen Model Search" will be revealed the following day. Like the competition reality series, though, the winner still gets a one-year modeling contract and a spread in a major fashion magazine.

"I've always felt it was my mission to expand the narrow perceptions of beauty," says Banks via a statement to Us magazine. The top model went on to say that she has always tried to "challenge industry and universal standards" by "celebrating non-traditional beauty" and stressing the importance of inner beauty.

Banks also said she was disappointed that the term "plus-sized" had such a negative connotation, and that really, it just referred to the average American woman.

"That woman is healthy, fit and beautiful," says Banks, according to Us magazine. "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."