Tyra Banks slammed for praising Top Model star with 'world's smallest waist'

Model Tyra Banks has been criticised for praising America's Next Top Model contestant for having the smallest waist in the world.

Banks promoted images of the woman with a shockingly thin waist in commercials for her hit modelling reality show's upcoming season.

Banks and her co-hosts gaze at a 188cm model with a waist so small a man's hands could touch while wrapped around it, In an ad for America's next Top Model, according to Fox News.com.

"There's something about her I like," Banks said.

The ad has already been dubbed as 'America's Next Top Circus Freak' by popular US blog the Frisky, reports News.com.au.

"I am going to give Ann, the six foot two inch model with the Barbie doll-sized waist, the benefit of the doubt and assume that she has a pituitary disorder rather than an eating one," blogger Ami Angelowicz wrote.