Italy has produced some of the most famous beauties that the world and Hollywood has ever seen. Film stars such as Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren represented the sultry and voluptuous woman.

Now Italy joins Spain in regulating the health and weight of fashion models. The Italian Fashion Chamber has teamed with the Italian government to produce a code that would ensure that models are healthy by requiring that models produce medical proof that they do not have an eating disorder. It would also ban models younger than 16. Interestingly, the code asks for fashion houses to add larger sizes to their collections.

In the photos of these famous Italian beauties it is clear that their clothes were designed to accentuate their assets. What you notice about clothes on fashion models today is that these sorts of assets would get in the way. The clothes seem designed to be draped over the stick figure clothes hanger that is the model. Which, I wonder, would men consider to be more attractive?

It would be wonderful if this code could be adopted internationally. It could save the lives of many young girls who develop eating disorders in trying to emulate these models and it would finally allow real women to assert their beauty.

Now that another model has died of complications of anorexia, the media are abuzz again with tragic tales of starvation diets and lots of head shaking.

Ana Carolina Reston, was a beautiful 21-year-old with dark hair and big eyes. She was 5′8″ tall and weighed only 88 pounds. The young model was trying to earn money to help her family in Brazil.

In August, Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos died of heart failure at a fashion show. She had been starving herself – trying to be thin enough.

Then in September, a furor in the fashion world began when prior to a fashion show in Spain, officials in Madrid set a guideline BMI(body mass index) for models who would appear on the runway. Models with a BMI below 18 were banned from the show. A BMI of 18 is considered underweight. A BMI of 15 is considered to be starvation level. Ana Carolina Reston’s BMI was 13.5.

These girls’ deaths are tragic, but perhaps the media attention they receive is a warning that the fashion industry will finally heed.

By contrast, Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty sets a standard for beauty that is realistic and attainable. The focus of the campaign is that real women come in all shapes and sizes. The message: Be happy with who you are.

In June, Linda Ellerbee, 62-year-old journalist, best-selling author and television producer was the recipient of the 2006 Dove Real Beauty Award.

Dove is working to help change our perceptions of beauty, to encompass all that a woman is and to reveal the distortion and deception in the images of beauty the media churns out.

Watch Dove’s “Evolution of Beauty” video.

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.