MARIE CARO, THE MOTHER OF ISABELLE CARO, COMMITS SUICIDE

Isabelle Caro (1982-2010)

From the Daily Mail:

"The mother of Isabelle Caro, the anorexic French model who died last year, has committed suicide.

Marie Caro, whose daughter made headlines around the world after a picture of her gaunt naked body appeared in a shocking ad campaign, took her own life earlier this month after being consumed with 'enormous guilt'.

Isabelle died at the age of 28 in a French hospital on November 17 after she was admitted for severe dehydration...."

Read more here:

Marie Caro, mother of Isabelle Caro, commits suicide

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ISABELLE CARO: REST IN PEACE, DEAR ISABELLE (1982 - 2010) [UPDATED: ISABELLE'S MOTHER COMMITS SUICIDE]

Isabelle Caro,(September 12, 1982  - November 17, 2010)

Isabelle Caro, close-up from Nolita billboard ad, September, 2007

 

Oliviero Toscani's Nolita billboard ad featuring Isabelle Caro

UPDATE

(Jan 20, 2011)

Isabelle's mother has committed suicide:

MARIE CARO, THE MOTHER OF ISABELLE CARO, COMMITS SUICIDE

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As images of her nude, emaciated body flashed around the world, Isabelle became the poster child and face of anorexia.  Oliviero Toscani's billboards featuring her image in Nolita's ad campaign in September 2007 made her instantly famous...not for her brains or beauty but for her deadly illness.

News of her death has been strangely silent.  One of my readers, Gloria, emailed a link to me of a video made by French musician, Vincent Bigler, honouring Isabelle.  Below his video, he posted this message (translated from French):

"Isabel left us on November 17 this year and it is with great friendship and great respect for her that I publish this video, which I hope will continue to fight against this terrible disease.

Isabelle thank you for your courage and for messages that you have managed to pass and that up there, you enjoy what you love, art, poetry, reading and love of people. Vincent"

On Isabelle's Facebook page, her death was announced.  All those who left comments and tributes were stunned by her passing.  Below is the announcement:

My deepest condolences go out to Isabelle's family and friends.  Her death at such a young age is tragic.  My hope is that Isabelle has finally found that peace that eluded her in life.

To read more about Isabelle, please click these links to my previous posts:

February 13, 2009:

ANOREXIA: ISABELLE CARO, STILL STICK THIN...

April 15, 2008:

FRANCE TABLES NEW "ANOREXIA" LAW

March 9, 2008:

ISABELLE CARO and ANOREXIA: HER TRAGIC CHILDHOOD and HER CURRENT STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE...

February 21, 2008: 

HOW MANY MODELS HAVE TO DIE ?

January 17, 2008:

KIMMER...MEET ISABELLE CARO

Gloria, I can't thank you enough for writing me about Isabelle's passing and providing me with links and Facebook screenshots.  Your assistance is so appreciated.

~ Medusa

Link:

Vincent Bigler's video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puv00o295-Q

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ISABELLE CARO, STILL STICK THIN...[UPDATE: REST IN PEACE, ISABELLE]

Isabelle Caro, close-up from Nolita billboard ad, September, 2007

UPDATE #2 

(Jan 20, 2011)

Isabelle's mother has committed suicide:

MARIE CARO, THE MOTHER OF ISABELLE CARO, COMMITS SUICIDE

 

UPDATE #1:

Sadly, on November 17, 2010, Isabelle passed away.  

More details can be found in my post here:

Click link:

ISABELLE CARO: REST IN PEACE, DEAR ISABELLE (1982 - 2010)

"A skeleton. I see a skeleton. But one on the road to recovery." (Isabelle Caro)

Oliviero Toscani's Nolita billboard ad featuring Isabelle Caro

"I thought this could be a chance to use my suffering to get a message across, and finally put an image on what thinness represents and the danger it leads to -- which is death...to make people react, for young girls who see this to think: 'Oh, so that's what lies behind the beautiful clothes, the hair, the image that we are shown of fashion.'"

Isabelle, 2007

"[My mother] said, 'Do you know how heavy this is?' " "I weighed 10 pounds more, and I kept thinking 'I'm heavier than that heavy gas cylinder so I am a burden on my mother.' And that's when I thought about wanting to lose weight, to stop my growth. I dropped to about 58 pounds. My meal was reduced to two squares of chocolate and five cornflakes. That's all I ate all day."

Isabelle, 2007

"I know that it will take time, but I would rather go slowly and surely rather than gain weight rapidly and then fall back into losing it again," she said. "I have to get used to how I look with more weight."

Isabelle, 2007

"I have suffered enormously from the way people look at me. When I first moved to Marseille, nobody spoke to me, people stared at me. I stopped going out of my house. In cafes and bars they refuse to serve me. And that's why I refused to talk about it for such a long time. I was so afraid of people judging me. People just think you just stop eating but that is not what anorexia is. You don't just decide from one day to the next to stop eating. It's very hard. It's real suffering, and it goes deep."

Isabelle, 2007

"I really want to have a child. And I hope my body will allow me to. My doctor says it's possible. I'm still not having periods -- my body is too weak -- but he says it is possible. Then for a relationship. I don't know yet. I'm with somebody now. I don't want to say very much because it's a bit complicated. At the moment it's more an affair of the heart than a physical relationship because, simply, I'm still very thin and it's still very difficult to enjoy normal physical relations with such a tiny body and a man who is a normal size. I'm still nervous about having sex."

Isabelle, 2007

"When I see myself now, I say, 'what a horror. I'm trying to get out of it, and I want young women to know that is possible."

Isabelle, 2007

"I’ve hidden myself and covered myself for too long. Now I want to show myself fearlessly, even though I know my body arouses repugnance. I want to recover because I love life and the riches of the universe. I want to show young people how dangerous this illness is."

Isabelle, 2007 (Note lanugo on her arms)

"Thinness leads to death and it is anything but beautiful." (Isabelle Caro)

Isabelle, 2007

"I had a very complicated childhood, very difficult, very painful. My mother's big phobia was that I would grow. She spent her time measuring my height. She wouldn't let me go outside because she'd heard that fresh air makes children grow, and that's why I was kept at home. It was completely traumatic."

Isabelle, 2008

"You feel as if you master everything, that you are in total control, and then little by little you fall into this hellish spiral, a spiral of death."

Isabelle, 2008

"At one point I went right down to just less than four stone but now I'm almost five. I know I'll keep fighting it because I love life and I believe in that more than anything."

Isabelle, 2008

"I would fall into comas and when I woke up I'd be delirious, not even remembering who I was."

Isabelle, 2008



"You feel as if you master everything, that you are in total control, and then little by little you fall into this hellish spiral, a spiral of death."

Isabelle on the scale, 2007

"That Christmas [when Isabelle was 13 years old] I asked for some scales. I saw I'd dropped a few pounds so I started eating less and less. My parents were so worried I spent hours weighing myself that mum broke my scales."

Isabelle, 2007

"I'd panic if I even put on a few grams. I rejected everything I wanted and everything that made me happy for some ideal of a pure life. It was an absolute hell - that's what this disease does to you."

Isabelle, 2007

"I had a very close relationship with my mother, which led me down the path of anorexia. She wanted me to be her little girl for ever. So as I started puberty I hated the idea that my body was going to change. I wanted to have the body of a child for ever, to make my mother happy."

Isabelle Caro, 2007

"To break the monotony of my younger days I pretended to have a stomach ache... I ended up in hospital and the doctor weighed me and my mother shot me a disapproving glance when he said how many kilos I was. I understood that for her I weighed too much. So from that day, slowly, slowly, I stopped eating."

Isabelle Caro, 2007

"I'd have painful cramps every morning and I would crawl to the fridge to eat something just so I had enough strength to get in the shower. And then my body was so tender and so ravaged by needles from the transfusions that every drop of water hurt."

Isabelle Caro from Toscani's Nolita shoot, September, 2007

"[My psychologist] said the only way I could get through it was to see them just on Mother's Day or Father's Day at first. She noticed that my mother always argued with me about food. But my parents weren't happy... and the doctor only helped me for six months."

Isabelle Caro, 2007

"Every day I fight the demons of anorexia... I'm eating more calories every day and it's really hard, but I know I'll make it."

Stills of Isabelle Caro from the Toscani Nolita ad shoot



"I still eat almost nothing, but I've stopped vomiting. I have started to distinguish tastes of things. I have tried ice-cream - it's delicious."

Isabelle Caro, January, 2009

"Now I want to show myself without fear, even though I know that my body is repugnant. The suffering I have experienced only makes sense if it can be of help to others who have fallen in to the trap from which I am trying to escape."

Isabelle Caro at book signing (her autobiography), January, 2009

My other posts on Isabelle...


KIMMER...MEET ISABELLE CARO

ISABELLE CARO and ANOREXIA: HER TRAGIC CHILDHOOD & HER CURRENT STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE...


FRANCE TABLES NEW "ANOREXIA" LAW

TO THE GIRL WHO SAID SHE "WANTS" TO BE ANOREXIC...

Links:

Isabelle Caro's blog:

http://neigeisabelle.blog.mongenie.com/

(English translation of main blog page here):

http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fneigeisabelle.blog.mongenie.com%2F&sl=fr&tl=en&history_state0=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09hizhA9VSw&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn7jGw4jFSY
http://www.casting.fr/
http://www.facebook.com
http://www.cbsnews.com/
http://www.france24.com/

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TO THE GIRL WHO SAID SHE "WANTS" TO BE ANOREXIC...

From an ana forum:

"THIS IS TO THE GIRL WHO SAID SHE "WANTS" TO BE ANOREXIC...

So...you think starving is a good way to lose weight, do you? I think you've read too many fairy tales. Well, this isn't one. Neither are eating disorders. They are sheer & total HELL. But, since you want one, I'll go ahead & prep you for it. I'll let you know exactly what will happen to you. If this doesn't make you realize how completely stupid running out there & trying to develop anorexia is, then I wish you the best of luck in killing yourself. Because that's all you'll be doing.



The completely ironic part about people trying to lose weight by starving is that half the time it does not work. I bet you think you'll wind up insanely thin & gorgeous, right? Wrong. You won't be gorgeous .One thing's for certain. Insane is a definite part of the package. Your mind won't be yours anymore. Kiss it goodbye, I hope you didn't enjoy it.



The less you eat, the lower your metabolism goes. You might starve & starve & barely lose anything...or you might be extra lucky...you might starve & starve & gain weight. Your body might just shut itself down & the weight go nowhere. & even though you aren't losing, you'll still be HOOKED. You still won't be able to stop. By the time your body shuts off from malnutrition, you'll be too far in it to *snap* think "Oh...this isn't working...I think I'll eat again." No...you'll be desperate & eat less & less & work out more and more. Eventually, you won't be ABLE to work out. Your muscles will eventually stop cooperating. Then you'll panic & try & eat even less to compensate for not being able to work your ass off (simply a figure of speech, since you're not losing any weight, of course). By then you can't eat less though. You're barely eating enough to stay alive as it is. & you can't stop. It isn't working & you still can't stop. & whether its working or not, you won't see the truth. You'll never actually know what you look like. Nope...no matter what you'll think you must weigh at least four hundred pounds. This is true if you weigh 150 or if you weigh 70. You will be fat. Insane is the proper term for it, isn't it? Yes, you might just be one of the lucky ones, one of the ones that doesn't lose weight. But don't sit there & think that means you won't be sick. Not true...not true at all. Your skin & hair will be dry, your teeth sore, your period gone, your bones aching, your muscles cramping...well, no need to go on. You still want this, of course. After all, you won't be like that. You won't be one of the failures. You'll be successful; you'll be thin & perfect. Beautiful.



Well, since you're going to win, why don't I tell you about your prize, hmm?? It's quite nice. You will be skinny. You will be sickly thin. Your ribs will stand out & your hipbones will be sharp. You won't see it. You'll look in the mirror & see fat. You'll see rolls. You'll look at girls who weight fifty pounds more than you & wonder why you can't be as thin as they are. You'll look in the mirror everyday & swear that you've gained at least ten pounds. Other people will see you shrink but you won't get to watch. You'll never see the truth. Others will though. You'll be sickly skinny...but you won't be pretty. & they'll all see that. You won't though...you'll be too busy staring at your ass & wondering when you turned into your fat Aunt Bertha. You will not be attractive. You won't. You'll have huge dark circles. Your skin will be pasty pale & have a lovely gray tint to it. Makeup will NOT help this. It won't, so don't think it will. Don't even bother to attempt it. You'll be wasting your time; time that could be better spent doing your usual pastime, staring into the pantry to watch the food. Of course, people might not notice that you're gray. They could be too busy staring at the dark black, blue, & purple spots you're covered in. Everything you do will result in a bruise. Everything.



Do you have pretty hair? You won't anymore. It will be straw dry & dull. It will not shine. Think conditioner will help? It won't. It won't & there's no sense in trying it. It might soften your hair for a while (after you use half the bottle, of course) but it won't make your hair look any better. Buy a ponytail holder. You'll need it. You'll probably be wearing it all the time. You'll also need some hair dye. I sincerely hope your hair isn't a nice color....because it won't be soon. Yes...the color of your hair will fade out. You might even get grays. But gray is a nice color, isn't it? I rather like it. I think the grayish brown color where my natural red and blonde highlights used to be adds a bit of...oh...dignity to my look.

Lanugo

Speaking of hair, do you like facial hair? I hope so. You'll have it. I have some lovely sideburns. Quite gorgeous. Actually, I have sexy hair everywhere. Fuzz, fuzz, fuzz. It's hot. All the guys love it and all the girls I know ask how to get some. They're jealous, you know. I tell them how I got it, starving. They never attempt it...I know why though. Its not because they're smart & healthy...no, no. Its because they're weak. Not strong like me. Of course, my muscles are deteriorating as we speak & I can no longer use even my five pound weights but I'm still strong, aren't I? Yes...because I don't eat. & that's true strength, isn't it? Denying yourself the basic fuel you need for life. Yup...strong & smart.

I bet you're one of those girls will the enviable natural nails. Those shiny ones that are so long people sometimes think they're fake? Cut them. Go ahead & cut them off now. They'll only break soon anyway.

Kiss your newly gray hair goodbye too. It'll be falling out about now. You get to clean the drain about 6 times during your shower, just so the water will go down.

Also, you'll need to find a way to throw away your tampons to make it look as if you've been using them. Remember to tell your mom to buy you tampons once a month. Can't have her knowing you lost your period. & you will. I hope you're not having sex because you'll never know if you're pregnant or not. I guess you can just take a test every few weeks. & yes...you can still get pregnant. I hope you don't love the baby though, because chances are you'll lose it. It would probably be for the best if you did though because of the nice birth defects caused by eating disorders. So, you might get to live with the knowledge that your child died or had to go through life with a terrible disability because of you...but it was worth it for thinness. A small price to pay for perfection, even though you're not the one paying it. Who needs their full mental capabilities anyway? I hope your kid doesn't. But that might not be a problem. You might never have children. You might become infertile. Oh well...pregnancy makes you fat anyway.




Since you're one of the special ones, one of the anorexic ones, I'll bet you enjoy ice water. Pour it out. Drink plain water, warm diet coke. It hurts too badly to drink iced drinks. You're taking sensitive teeth to a new level. Forget those special toothpastes though. They don't work when your teeth are slowly dying from vitamin deficiencies. Never liked those teeth anyway. Dentures are nice.

How do you like to sit? Oh...you like your legs crossed? Hmm...too bad. Can't do that anymore. Your legs will fall asleep all the way up to your hips. Painfully asleep. This isn't like what you're used to, that tingly feeling. This hurts. A word of advice. After uncrossing them, just sit there. Don't try moving them or hitting them to wake them up. Bad idea...very painful. Don't stand up either, unless you enjoy collapsing.

Fainting is common too. & don't think this is something you can hide. Whenever you pass out dead in the living room in front of your mom or brother they'll wonder why...and unless they're complete idiots they'll probably know why...especially if you're 30 pounds underweight. Get ready for nagging. Eat this, eat that, why are you doing this to yourself??

You could always go to your room to escape though. Then you can lie in bed & bite your lip until it bleeds...why would you want to do that, do you ask? Because of the leg cramps, of course...oh! I must've forgotten to mention those! Oooh...the cramps are nice. Your muscles are balled into excruciating knots. You'll double over to massage the knots out and...what? There are no knots. There IS no rubbing the knots out because there are no knots. It just feels like it. There's nothing you can do. You just get to lie there & try not to scream. & trust me...you'll want to. Of course, you could always rub your legs anyway...it might make you feel better to pretend there's something you can do to help them. But you might not be thinking about your legs...you might be distracted by the headaches. Take some aspirin...oooh...or don't. Your tummy's too empty; it'll only make you throw up everywhere.

It's worth it right? Anything's worth it, even your hair, nails, bones, muscles, possible children, your family's heart, everything. Sacrifice it all, throw it all away. You're thin now, that's what counts, even though you don't know it.

You'll probably get chest pains. Maybe heart flutters. This is scary too, because you never wanted to die, you just wanted to be thin. But remember, you can't tell. Telling is forbidden & asking for help is weak.


Do you have problems with depression? You do now. The less you eat the more depressed you become. Partially from vitamin deficiencies, partially from your lovely eating disorder. Do you have problems with insomnia? That's right, you've got that now too. You're exhausted beyond belief but you still can't fall asleep...& when you do you can't stay asleep. Who needs sleep though?? Not you. Staying awake burns more calories anyway.

Do you do well in school? You don't now. You can't concentrate. Your mind won't function, & the only thing you can actually think about is food anyway. Your grades will fall. Want to recover? You'll probably have to leave school. How does repeating a grade sound?

Do you like going out with friends? You won't for long. You'll be afraid someone might notice how obese you are. You can't leave the house now without hiding under tons of clothes...you're terrified someone might see your repulsive body. You'll become more nervous too. Jittery. You'll also have difficulty talking. Oh...have you never had a stuttering problem? Well, you do now. You also forget what you wanted to say alot. Goodbye memory. And you can't go out with friends anyway, so I guess it's a good thing you no longer enjoy it. If you go out with friends they might want to eat! Maybe they'll want to go to a restaurant or the movies. How can you explain that you don't want any popcorn? How can you find an excuse for sitting there at the table sipping Diet Dr. Pepper or nibbling a salad & water while everyone else has cheeseburgers?? You can't. & they might make you eat. You can't do that...no. But why do they want you to eat? Is it because they care? No. Its because they WANT you to be fat!! How dare they?? They're jealous...that's it, they're jealous. Soon you'll realize something. Everyone wants you to be fat. Your parents, your siblings, teachers, friends. The world is against you & they all want you to spiral into morbid obesity. Get away from them. All of them. They don't understand & they're plotting your downfall. You can't have that, you can't lose this. Every time someone urges you to eat or recover "for your health" you know the truth. They hate you & want you to be fat. Push them away. Push away all the people who love you. That's the only way you'll ever be thin.

Israeli model, Hila Elmalich, RIP

Isabelle Caro

But one day this will be over. One day you will either die or recover. Death is easier. First you'll have to admit you need help (that is, on the chance that you haven't been forced into recovery...recovery that will not work until you cooperate). This is one of the hardest things you've ever done. Maybe you'll tell your mom. She might be wonderfully supportive, she might've already known. Or maybe she won't think you have a real problem. Then you're on your own. Maybe you'll tell your doctor. & if you tell your mom, she'll take you to a doctor. Then its better. You're safe now, they'll help you. They'll understand. Wrong. A degree is not an insurance against ignorance. & speaking of insurance, it only pays so much on mental health problems. And ED treatment costs are outrageous. So, even if you find a doctor that knows his ass from a hole in the ground you might not be able to get help. You might not be able to afford it.

As you recover, your school might have to know. Your teachers will not understand. Students might find out. They won't understand either. Their comments will hurt, you'll want to scream when they ask why you don't just eat. They might call you fat just for fun. Someone might start to admire you & try to become anorexic too...but then, you've been there. You wanted to be anorexic once & you never realized how stupid you were. You know it now, but it's too late. Its too late & you have to fight this or die...& fighting it is the hardest thing you've ever done. You'll put food in your mouth, that disgusting, terrible food & panic & want to cry. Maybe you will cry. Maybe you'll freak & spit it back out. Maybe you'll refuse to eat & get a lovely feeding tube. Triggers are everywhere & you want to kill yourself more with each bite you swallow. Maybe you will kill yourself. Maybe you'll fight & fight & enter recovery only to die while in recovery or even afterwards from complications caused by your years of having an eating disorder.

After fighting for the longest time, maybe you will get out. Maybe, after numerous slip ups & times that where so hard you thought you'd die, you recover. It takes a while. Even after you've eaten right for months & months your body still isn't the same. You start to wonder if it will ever be the same again. It might, but you won't. No. This will always be a part of you, it will never go away. Years later it will still be with you, you will still have those moments. Sometimes you'll pass a mirror & suddenly be 200 pounds larger. You'll panic & shake your head, trying to clear the image away. Something will happen in your life, maybe you'll lose your job. Something will happen to take away your control & you'll try to gain it back through starving. You will NEVER be the same. You'll see an article on a someone with an eating disorder & you'll start to cry, remembering that terrible pain. I'm not talking about the physical pain. That's the only pain I described, because it's the only part that's describable. There are no words for the mental anguish. It can never be described. It's unimaginable. You'll never feel another pain like that, another pain so filled with self loathing, vulnerability, terror, rage, desolation...

WHY do you want this?? WHY?!? I know, even after reading this, that you're still sitting there, wanting this. Why? What is it you want?? Is it beauty? Do you honestly think you won't be like this?? Do you honestly think malnutrition won't steal your looks? Is it glamour? READ THIS. Show me the glamour. Is it control?? Let me tell you, you'll NEVER be more out of control than you are when you have an eating disorder. You don't control what you put in your mouth. Hell, you don't even control your thoughts. You have NO control. None.

Do you honestly think that you'll be able to do this & not wind up this way? Do you think you are the one person on earth who can control this, who can just stop??? Do you think that maybe you can just do this, get thin, & stop?? WRONG! It doesn't work that way. Do you WANT to die? Do you want to be a martyr or something? Do you think this is beautiful? I bet you think its some sort of tragic beauty. Its not. There's nothing beautiful about it. Do you want some attention? Buy a new eyeliner, dance naked in the streets. Needing attention is a natural thing but there are a hell of alot better ways to get it.

Father of sisters Luisel Ramos and Eleana (aka Eliana) Ramos, who both died from anorexia, at the funeral of Eleana

Eleana Ramos, RIP

Luisel Ramos, RIP

Do you want to look at your family's faces & know that you're killing them too? Imagine watching your child killing themselves, imagine your helplessness, imagine KNOWING that they're dying & KNOWING that there's NOTHING that you can do. Imagine fearing the day you'll come home to find them dead from this. Just sit there & try to think about it. Of course, while you're starving yourself you won't see that anguish. You won't be able to. You can't see anything, you're too self absorbed. You're too busy thinking about your weight, about food. You'll see it when you recover though & you'll hate yourself for doing that to the ones you love. You'll wish there was something you could do to erase it but there is nothing. You just have to live with it...& living with it is hard. Especially when you think of how many times your anger came out on them, how many times you got nasty when they were only trying to save your life. You'll hate yourself.

Young girl who died from a ruptured stomach

(See: ARE YOU ANOREXIC / BULIMIC / PRO ANA / PRO MIA ?)

But do you know what? Self-hatred is the least of your worries now. Because you've likely just signed your own death warrant...& you likely don't even care...yet. But you will. You will care. You will care & you will cry & rage & swear you'd give anything to take it all back. But it's too late, because by the time you're in deep enough to care, you're already dying. Its too late to snap out of it now, no matter how much you want to.

This is the reality of anorexia. It is nothing like the powerful articles you read on how so & so overcame it. It is nothing like the beauty you see when you look at that thin model. It is nothing like that beautiful popular girl who naturally weighs 80lbs. It is nothing like anything you've ever lived before & you will never be the same."

~~~~~~~~~~

The section, QUICKLINKS TO MEDUSA'S POSTS ON EATING DISORDERS, on the right-hand side of my blog has other posts on Luisel & Eleana Ramos, Hila Elmalich, Isabelle Caro, Ana Carolina Reston, Aimee Moore, lanugo (facial & body hair), etc.

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FRANCE TABLES NEW "ANOREXIA" LAW

Isabelle Caro

In 2007, France banned the controversial Nolita advertisement featuring Isabelle Caro, a French anorexic model.

On April 10th, 2008, the following article appeared on the TimesOnline website:

"Websites and designers face prosecution in new French anorexia law"

"Promoting extreme thinness will become a criminal offence punishable by a jail sentence under a government-backed law that was tabled yesterday [April 9th] in France to combat anorexia nervosa.

(Frank Barrett/The Sun)
A model at London Fashion week:
designers in France oppose the law

The world’s first use of the law to tackle eating disorders is broadly aimed at the media and fashion world, but especially at the websites and blogs of the so-called pro-ana movement. While many are support groups, others promote starvation as a “life-style choice”, with girls and young women posting their wasting images as “thinspiration” for others.

Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have come under pressure in Britain and other countries recently to ban their pro-ana entries.

Last month a website that originated in France caused an outcry for encouraging children as young as 9 to embrace plastic surgery and extreme dieting in the search for the perfect figure. The Miss Bimbo site invites users to create a virtual doll, keep it “waif thin” with diet pills and buy it breast implants and facelifts. The website attracted 1.2 million players in France.

Fines of up to €30,000 (£24,000) and a two-year prison sentence will be imposed on offenders who “provoke a person to seek excessive thinness by encouraging prolonged restriction of nourishment” to the point of risking death or damage to health. The prison term is raised to three years with a €45,000 fine if the person dies.

Some experts and fashion leaders oppose the Bill, which is expected to be passed by Parliament within months. “You do not solve this kind of problem with the law but with understanding,” Jean-Paul Gaultier, the designer, said. Didier Grumbach, head of the French Couture Federation, said it was not up to the state to legislate on beauty and aesthetic criteria.

The law, modelled on legislation for abetting suicide, was tabled by Valérie Boyer, an MP from President Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement. Roselyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, gave it the Government’s blessing at the unveiling of a code for the media, advertising and fashion industry on “promoting healthy body images” and fighting anorexia.

“The pro-ana movements which spread their messages of death on the web must be the target for special attention,” Mrs Bachelot said as she presented Mrs Boyer’s draft Bill along with the voluntary code. Up to 40,000 people suffer from anorexia in France, the great majority of them girls and young women.

The 48-year-old elder daughter of Jacques Chirac, the last President, has been incapacitated for two decades with the disease..."


To read the rest of the article, please click here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3715030.ece?token=null&offset=0

On the same day the French law was tabled, the French fashion industry signed an anti-anorexia charter:

Roselyne Bachelot signs the
"Charter on voluntary engagment over the
body image and against anorexia"

"PARIS (AFP) — The French fashion industry on Wednesday signed a charter to promote healthy body images among ultra-skinny models in magazine ads and on the catwalks of Paris, the world's fashion capital.

After more than a year of talks, officials from fashion houses, advertising firms and media outlets joined Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot to ink the voluntary charter, joining a worldwide drive to combat anorexia.

The charter outlines a series of guidelines but falls short of imposing restrictions, as is the case in Spain which has set a minimum body mass index of 18 for catwalk models.

This translates to a minimum weight of 56 kilos (123 pounds) for a height of 1.75 metres (5.74 feet).

French fashion supremos committed to a series of "positive actions" to promote healthy body images, mostly through awareness-raising and information sharing.

Signatories pledged to refrain from using "images of people, in particular youth, that could contribute to promoting a model of extreme thinness."

The measures were drafted by a working group set up in January 2007 by the health ministry to respond to recent alarm over the deaths of models and an outcry over bare-bone physiques being held up as the epitome of beauty.

In November 2006, Ana Carolina Reston in Brazil died at the age of 21, weighing in at less than 40 kilos for her tall 1.7 metre frame. Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos died of heart failure in August that same year.

Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani caused a stir last year with a series of anti-anorexia ads featuring Frenchwoman Isabelle Caro, who weighs just 32 kilogrammes (70 pounds) for a height of 1.65 metres.

The ads for the Italian clothing firm No-l-ita were launched in the middle of Milan fashion week under the slogan "No to Anorexia..."


Click here to read the rest of the article:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5ihv2o-dRnyk8SG5ovcmop_bOwxNQ

To view my previous posts on Isabelle Caro, please click here:

ISABELLE CARO and ANOREXIA: HER TRAGIC CHILDHOOD & HER CURRENT STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE...

HOW MANY MODELS HAVE TO DIE ?

THE DEADLY KIMKINS DIET & EATING DISORDERS...

KIMMER...MEET ISABELLE CARO...

Also check out the post by mrsmenopausal at her great blog, Weighing the Facts, here:

"France May Make It Illegal To Promote Extreme Thinness"

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