Kirsten’s Topless Ambition (BBC3, 9pm); Born To Be Different: Turning Eight (C4, 9pm)

ANTHEA TURNER did it with a snake on the cover of Tatler magazine. Angelica Bell did it in lads’ mag FHM.

And Gail Porter had her naked image projected on to the Houses of Parliament. If you want to get ahead as a presenter, then stripping off and posing provocatively would seem to be the message.

Middlesbrough-born Kirsten O’Brien has been a children’s presenter for 12 years and, as she says, has seen others shoot past her in the fame game. Quite often it’s because they’ve got their bits out for a men’s mag.

“Should I do it?” she wonders. Or as a 21st Century intelligent woman, should she refrain from using her body to get on in the world. Besides, she says, “Do any lads’ mags want to shoot my knockers anyway?”

Her ambition when she entered the TV world was to be in a broom cupboard.

Not any old broom cupboard, but the one on BBC children’s TV occupied first of all by Philip Schofield.

She achieved that ambition, costarred with an aardvark and is now a children’s favourite. But she feels it’s time for a change. You get the feeling it was sparked, perhaps unconsciously, by the death last year of her Smart co-presenter Mark Speight.

O’Brien does a thorough job in researching the pros and cons of using her body to give her career a boost – the sort of exposure seen by likes of Cat Deeley, Myleen Klass and Fearne Cotton.

She finds a survey that discovered 63 per cent of teenage girls would rather be a topless glamour model than a doctor, nurse or teacher. Understandably, this worries O’Brien. So does wondering if she’s sexy.

She doesn’t look forward to posing in her bra and pants. Even boyfriend Mark has rarely seen her in a bikini.

So she goes off and tries on skimpies at a local store – and gets Mark to take pictures of her. “I can’t do the faces, I always pull faces,” she says. A stylist to the stars suggests heels, a killer dress and hair extensions to make her suitable for posing.

Gradually, reasons for her reluctance to expose herself in print come through.

She was once “burnt” by a regional newspaper that put her on the front page over a personal matter. Then when she dated an actor, she was long-lensed (by photographers, not the boyfriend) and felt uncomfortable.

She may be reluctant to bare flesh but doesn’t hold back on the personal opinions as her quest takes her to meet Anthea Turner. The former Blue Peter presenter posed naked, apart from a large snake, for Tatler, a more prestigious publication than a lads’ mag.

Front magazine shows an interest in featuring O’Brien, although after meeting a man whose job is “jug juggler” – use your imagination, I’m not explaining – her enthusiasm wanes.

At FHM, the deputy editor is brutally honest about the fact that she’s not quite the type they usually feature. A visit to audition as a pole dancer for nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow is equally disheartening.

He’s not impressed by her, referring to her gyrations as “like the dance of the sugar plum fairy”.

THE latest documentary in the Born To Be Different series catches up with the six disabled youngsters whose lives are being chronicled by the camera.

As they turn eight and nine, they can finally articulate for themselves what their physical and mental conditions mean to them and their families, and what the future holds.

Nine-year-old Hamish has achondroplasia, commonly called dwarfism.

He’s just become the proud owner of a BMX bike and it’s the envy of his friends.

But he and his family are moving to a new town, and questions arise about how finding new friends will affect him.

Zoe has a condition that severely disables legs and arms. She’s already undergone several painful operations that have enabled her to walk.

Now Zoe and her mother have to decide whether she should have another groundbreaking operation that could allow her to bend an arm, and fulfil her dream of putting on her own lipstick.