Isabelle Caro Dead: Anorexic Model Dies At 28 (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

Warning: video and image below are shocking and graphic.

Text by the Associated Press

PARIS - Isabelle Caro, a French actress and model whose anorexic image appeared in a shock Italian ad campaign, has died at the age of 28.

Her longtime acting instructor, Daniele Dubreuil-Prevot, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Caro died on Nov. 17 after returning to France from a job in Tokyo.

Dubreuil-Prevot said she did not know the cause of death but that Caro "had been sick for a long time," referring to her anorexia.

Caro featured in an ad campaign by Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani in 2007 for an Italian fashion house. Under the headline "No Anorexia," images across newspapers and billboards showed Caro naked, vertebrae and facial bones protruding.

Caro said she had suffered from anorexia since she was 13.

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Caro once appeared on Jessica Simpson's "The Price of Beauty." Simpson talked about their meeting with Oprah in March.

WATCH:

An image from Caro's shock campaign:

Comments

[Demarcus Jackson]

03:30 PM on 01/20/2011

This is sad news. I used Caro during my lecture on anorexia and eating disorders. May she rest in peace.

[mad fred]

01:37 AM on 01/21/2011

She really wanted to help other girls.
Everyone be careful what you say when girls are becoming women.

[Angie Daniels]

11:07 PM on 01/03/2011

Ladies and gentleman, please reinforce with your daughters and sons that while being fit is good, thin and fit are two different things. A "voluptuous" size 12 who can run or go up flights of stairs without passing out or a healthy 8, 6, 4, even a 14 or 16 who eat regularly and exercise are SO much better off. The modeling industry isn't realistic. Get your daughters a subscription to Fit, Shape or other magazines that celebrate a healthy lifestyle. It's a shame that this woman lost her life chasing an unrealistic ideal that just wanted her as a coat hanger for their clothes. I've been small and I've been heavier, but the key is being healthy at all times, regardless of scale size. More expensive clothes tend to "run larger" as well, so don't base it on clothes, base it on how you feel when you exercise.

[John Dav]

12:31 PM on 01/20/2011

I don't think a size 16 on a woman is ever healthy.

[LisaLisa1234]

01:06 PM on 01/20/2011

Do you have any proof to back up your opinion?

[valkyre]

03:44 PM on 01/20/2011

Hello -

I am a size 16. I could honestly stand to lose some body fat by exercising more, but if I do, it will be replaced with muscle. I have been a size 16 since I was about 16. I am 6'1" and have wide hips and long legs - kind of like my picture actually, with a body type you'd expect from a Viking warrior gal. I do not look overweight now as a size 16, but do have a little tummy and extra fat on my legs and arms I can see.

I was extremely physically fit when I was young, I spent years living entirely out of a backpack hopping trains and hiking around the country, often living in the woods in my tent and hunting for what I ate aside from a few dried goods. So I had nearly no body fat from not eating 100% regularly and expending all energy on survival, and had very muscular legs and arms from carrying all my belongings with me, sometimes walking for days on end. When I started working I got a jobs doing migrant work, as a mover, doing roofing, and brick work, and I didn’t lose any muscle tone before the last several years that I’ve worked at an office. So, I am familiar with how my body looks when I am completely fit and I was still a size 16. It's okay - girls are allowed to be tall, big, strong, and muscular and

[landskroon]

03:32 PM on 01/20/2011

When do women stop buying clothes of those murderous designers, name them, blame them and finish them. Same for all shops that fill their window with pencil-thin puppets, avoid them, brake them down. Glossys with pictures of those exploited girls need to be treated harder than porno.

[Dorothea Marie Dempsey]

06:56 PM on 01/03/2011

horribly disturbing, poor woman was trying to make things better for her.

[iRock]

08:38 PM on 01/02/2011

That's a sad condition.

[NoSillyName]

01:14 AM on 01/02/2011

I'm glad I was young at a time when no one knew about eating disorders. Twiggy was shocking to us, but we assumed that she was naturally very thin. Never heard of anorexia until Karen Carpenter died. Size 4 used to be the smallest "junior petite" size.

Oh, to be so naive.

[writergal28]

07:36 PM on 01/02/2011

A 2010/2011 size 0 has the same measurements as a size 4 from the 80s and 90s.

[NoSillyName]

09:46 PM on 01/02/2011

I didn't know that, writergal. Wow, I was a size "0" once upon a time and far, far away.

But I'm only 5' 1 3/4" so I was always slim with curves and not skinny.

[jumbotron16]

02:38 PM on 01/20/2011

That would explain why my size hasn't changed since the 80s. :(

[ranxem]

08:10 PM on 01/01/2011

Horrible, just horrible!!!

[saltandwater]

01:05 AM on 01/01/2011

May Isabelle Caro be blessed for being so brave by showing the world the human cost of modeling. A woman is worth so much more than just trying to make a dress look pretty.
Watch your young daughters (and sons too!) because this pressure to be thin starts very young! My daughter started to talk about "how fat she is" when she was 6 or 7, although she is naturally very thin (she inherited this trait from her dad, not her mom).
As parents we should emphasize our children's qualities as human beings, a healthy lifestyle and scholastic accomplishments and away from shallow, phony photoshopped images).

[meowser]

08:42 PM on 12/31/2010

Horribly sad.

[Stickytoffee]

07:28 PM on 12/31/2010

I submitted a comment before this one that was not published, and I'm glad it wasn't.
It focused on disagreeing with another comment on here, and the second I pressed "post comment" I regretted it.

The point of this article is that this woman is no longer with us. It is incredibly sad, horrible, and alarming.
I think perhaps that is what we should be focusing on; not sparing over whether the overweight or underweight have it worse. That should probably saved for a more appropriate article.

[ilaughtilicried]

03:21 PM on 12/31/2010

If you know anyone who has an eating disorder advise them to get medical help ASAP.
For example @
NewYork-Presbyterian, Weill Cornell and Columbia University Establish Integrated Eating Disorders Center
o Anorexia Nervosa
o Binge Eating Disorder
o Bulimia Nervosa
o Eating Disorders
NewYork-Presbyterian, Weill Cornell and Columbia University Establish Integrated Eating Disorders Center.
Do not wait!

[ShapeYourselfTV]

01:21 PM on 12/31/2010

Rest in Peace Isabelle !!!!
One minute silence !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1vugabdyMo

[Dbos]

10:59 AM on 12/31/2010

Insidious and misunderstood disease so so so sad.

[tucsoncindy]

01:05 AM on 12/31/2010

Very disturbing in so many ways. Body image and what one sees in the mirror
and the disease of eating disorders. I have fought this image all my life.
Isabelle Caro may gods grace be with you rest in peace.

[gwensgal]

12:59 AM on 12/31/2010

It goes without saying that it's tragic that she was powerless to help herself, but the bright spot is that she used her illness to as a signpost for others, warning them to turn back from destruction.

A well-deserved rest, Isabelle....

[Daisytoo]

09:34 AM on 12/31/2010

Meant to say: "I believe that the widespread cultural fostering of the false notion that the appearance of self control/su ccess is more important than self acceptance /love is complicit in the formation of eating disorders and other addictions; ..."

[renoir]

01:44 PM on 12/31/2010

Unrealistic expectations of what a body should look like play a giant role in every day self-hatred. Recent example: the beautiful and talented Natalie Portman said that she starves herself to keep her figure. She exercises all the time, but to keep as thin as she is, she must starve. There is something grossly wrong with our culture when we expect people to achieve UNREASONABLE body goals. I wonder at what weight Natalie Portman would settle, if she didn't starve herself. No doubt she would be gorgeous... and possibly, what? A size 7 instead of a size 0?

The poor girl in this article was a victim of our culture and the style industry that sets impossible goals... creating size 0 clothing for models that they then have to translate into more realistic sizes to sell. I doubt seriously that anorexia exists in cultures where food is more difficult to come by. Does anyone have any stats on that?

For all you healthy size 0 women out there... wonderful! I'm not concerned about you. But the images of this poor girl are just tragic and heartbreaking.

My 85 year old mother celebrates every time she gets the flu, because it means that she gets to drop 5 pounds or so "easily". That's just wrong.