Another Death Reignites Debate Over Underweight Models
Feb 20th, 2007 • Posted in: NewsMONTEVIDEO, Uruguay
Last week’s death of another underweight fashion model, the sister of an underweight runway star who died several months ago, has reignited the international debate on the ethics of displaying clothes on “size zero” women.
Eliana Ramos, 18, was found dead at her grandparents’ home in Montevideo, Uruguay, last Tuesday. While no official medical report was available, a local judge told the Associated Press that she died of a heart attack.
According to the Times of London, local reports indicated that the woman, who was taking part in the Montevideo fashion week exposition, was suffering from a nutritional deficiency.
Her sister, Luisel Ramos, 22, collapsed and died on the catwalk during a fashion show in August. She, too, died of a heart attack.
Her father later said she had been on a starvation diet.
The deaths of the Ramos sisters, coupled with a similar case involving a Brazilian model who died from complications relating to an eating disorder, reignited a furious debate in fashion centers around the world over the ethics of allowing models who starve themselves to unhealthy — but fashionable — levels to appear in fashion shows.
The London Daily Mail reports that industry critics are accusing various modeling agencies of employing unhealthy women in two recent shows, despite earlier pledges not to do so.
The Daily Mail’s sister paper, the Evening Standard, brought a physician specializing in eating disorders to the shows. She told the paper that while she could not confirm that the models suffered from an eating disorder, they were down to a weight that was not healthy and thereby exposed themselves to such maladies as infertility, osteoporosis, and possible heart failure.
The Australian fashion industry immediately convened a forum to discuss the question of underweight models. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the Australian Fashion Council may impose a minimum body mass index requirement similar to the one introduced in Madrid.
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