Dying to be Beautiful
Spain has certainly caused a stir in the fashion world with its ban on too-thin models in an upcoming fashion show in Madrid. You can read about it in my article on this blog. New reports indicate that up to 30% of models were eliminated based on their low BMI scores.
What I found didn’t get much press was the untimely and sad death of a 22 year old Uruguayan model, briefly mentioned in a news article about the Spanish boycott. Luisel Ramos, who had been advised she could really make it big as a model if she only dropped some weight, reportedly starved herself for a period of up to two weeks prior to a show and suffered heart failure after stepping off the runway in Montevideo on August 2, 2006. Medical personnel called to the scene were unable to revive her. Her father told police she had eaten only leafy vegetables and Coke for weeks prior to the fashion show appearance.
I tried to find more on this sad story but nearly every article I found was either on a blog or on a South American website. I found one in German and another from Vietnam. I don’t speak either German or Vietnamese so I had to rely on the Spanish sites and the English language blogs for information. But why didn’t this story get more media attention?
I don’t know the answer to that. I do hope that the recent decisions by the regional government in Madrid are part of a new trend. Despite the constant media barrage of ultra-thin female images, there is little said about the dangers of being too thin and besides, young teens aren’t going to listen. The only way to prevent a tragedy like Luisel Ramos is to show them. Give them positive body images to emulate in fashion and entertainment. That can only happen if we stop rewarding the perpetrators. When we stop pulling out our checkbooks and wallets, they will get the message.
It looks like you and I are on to the same topics, keep up the good work. The death of these two models will undoubtedly become a distant memory all too soon as our girls are bombarded with new, unachievable beauty myth images.
I lived the model life, and it is hell. At 16, I was whisked away to Paris and continually told “do not eat, you have a big job” although I was 5′9, 125.
There was no size “0″ it did not exist. Size 8 was the standard model size, I wonder what it is today?
-mamaVISION
http://mamaVISION.wordpress.com
By mamaVISION on November 30th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
I like what you have on your blog, mamaVISION, because it makes me uncomfortable. It’s straight shooting, gutsy stuff and I hope that what you are doing, what little I have done and what others will decide to step in to do, can save some of these girls from this path of self-destruction.
By Andrea on December 1st, 2006 at 4:24 am
actually
most of us are 100ish to 110ish, about 5′9″+ PREFERABLy (5′8″ is short for a model) and we, at least at my modeling agency have,models are a baggy size 0, 1, maybe 2 at the most.
i guess it is sad, but the days of size 6 models don’t exist.
and now with the obesity in america, yuck, the woman’s average size is 14.
i think this BMI deal is ridiculous, i’m 6′1″, 105 lbs. this is my job. and some of us are just can’t help being thin.
and i hate being judged for it.
By ale on December 4th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
The truth ale, is that only one in about 40,000 women have a model’s height and proportions and even those who are born with naturally slim waists, hips, broad shoulders, and the height are not naturally 105 lbs at 6′1″. Most of the time they have to work at being that thin and that means not eating enough, not being healthy.
You don’t want to be judged for being naturally thin, and for each one of you there are 40,000 women being judged for not having your body type. What I am proposing is that women should not be held to a standard of beauty that is impossible for almost all of them to achieve. Besides, you wouldn’t want the average woman to look like you, then you might not have a job, there would be too many women just like you.
Size 0 is the most ridiculous thing anyone ever dreamt up and only came about because they just kept making the existing sizes bigger so that women could feel better about themselves. A size 6 today is a lot larger than a size 6 was years ago and a size 0 is probably what a 2 or 4 used to be. 2 is probably a 4 and so on…
Maybe you’re larger than you think.
By Andrea on December 5th, 2006 at 2:04 am