From Hair Loss To Bacterial Skin Infections, America's Next Top Model Spotlighted So Many Relatable Health Issues

"America's Next Top Model" is back in the headlines, all thanks to "Reality Check: Inside America's Next Top Model." The three-part Netflix documentary series sheds light on the controversial reality television competition series, created, hosted, and executive-produced by none other than supermodel Tyra Banks. "I want to marry American Idol and The Real World and set it in the modeling industry," she recalled in the docuseries about how she came up with the premise for the reality show (via AOL).

Alas, as the old saying goes, hindsight is 20/20. Suffice it to say, after watching clips of the show through an all-new and more discerning lens, it's clear that "America's Next Top Model" was way more cringe than we remember — and yet, we were all rooting for it. "They started as misfits with very good intentions," co-director Daniel Sivan told The Guardian about the show's original mission to challenge the modeling industry's conventional beauty standards. "They were starting as disruptors but as power grew, they became bullies." 

Ironically, for better or for worse, and perhaps even purely by happenstance, the show did end up serving as a spotlight for so many relatable health issues, as the contestants dealt with conditions like alopecia and impetigo — all while the cameras were rolling. 

Jeana Turner appeared on cycle 24 of "America's Next Top Model," and bravely shared her personal experience with her hair falling out due to alopecia, a condition she was first diagnosed with at 10 years old. "Removing the wig is really liberating, it's freeing," Turner declared during an episode of the reality television competition series, wherein she permitted a hairstylist to remove her wig on camera. "I feel like the whole world can see me now. I feel like I can see myself now."

According to the official website for the National Alopecia Areata Foundation, alopecia is a common skin disease that causes hair loss on the scalp, face, and other body areas, including underarms and legs. Per the foundation, it affects as many as 7 million people in the United States alone.

Sadly, many years later, Turner confessed that she had some serious regrets about allowing hairstylists for the show to shave her head entirely. "I wouldn't even run down my driveway to the mailbox if I didn't have my hair on," Turner admitted tearfully in a clip of an interview she did for "Dark Side of Reality TV" (via People). "Like I really wasn't ready for it to be shaven like that on TV."

During cycle 4 of "America's Next Top Model," Michelle Deighton bravely opened up about a mysterious skin condition she was dealing with in real time. As one can imagine, news travels fast in a house full of women who are all competing against one another, with them coming to the erroneous conclusion that she was either suffering from an incurable flesh-eating bacteria or scabies. 

It wasn't until after both Deighton and a hair and makeup artist pressed the powers that be for Deighton to see a doctor, however, that the show's creator and executive producer, Tyra Banks (who was ultimately responsible for the well-being of all of the contestants), finally arranged for Deighton to receive medical care. "It ended up being impetigo," Deighton recalled during an appearance on Oliver Twixt's YouTube show. "I guess kids get it all the time and it's just some little bacteria thing you get in your skin and, of course, from the chemical burn on my scalp, and all the products, and all that stuff, my skin was already freaking out. So yeah, good times," she joked about struggling with the highly contagious bacterial skin infection.