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.

Does it seem that the only time that anyone pays attention to Boomers is when they have found something else to warn us about?

Two studies, one done at Harvard University and the other by the National Cancer Institute are being cited to warn Baby Boomers that any amount of excess fat can kill them.

This is in direct contradiction to a study done by the CDC last year, which showed that people who were overweight but not obese had lower mortality rates than people who were of normal weight. The conclusion was that, in older individuals, a little cushion of weight was protective.

So, which do we believe?

Last week the British medical journal, The Lancet, published a study from the Mayo clinic that concluded that overweight was the healthiest weight category with lower mortality than for those classified as normal weight, obese or underweight.

The two studies that declare any excess weight to be a killer both utilize the BMI or body mass index to classify people into weight categories. They also relied on participants’ own reports of their height and weight. I don’t know about you, but this is generally something I lie about. But consider also that the BMI does not take into account muscle mass or where body fat is located. Using BMI statistics, Arnold Schwarzenegger is obese.

Women are told that after 40 we can expect changes in metabolism making it harder to keep excess weight off and because of this, doctors are concerned that middle-aged women are developing eating disorders. With headlines like “Overweight Boomers Risk Early Death”, are they surprised?