Through the Looking Glass: The skinny on all-too-thin models
The cultural ideal of Barbie beauty cannot continue to claim women’s lives
By Sarah Delia, staff writer
Posted on March 1, 2007

Over the course of seven months, three scarily slender models have died. If you search the Web for pictures of Carolina Reston, Luisel Ramos or Eliana Ramos, you will find virtually the same image which includes a face that looks too big for the body it is attached to and a bathing suit with a skeleton-like figure desperately attempting to keep it on. Go one step further and you will see that all these ladies have one other thing in common: they all have an obituary.

Imagine consuming nothing but apples and tomatoes such as Reston did, who died this past November of anorexia, allowing herself no other foods or spices save for ice cubes in between photo shots. If that diet doesn’t whet your appetite, think of Luisel Ramos’ diet of lettuce leaves and Diet Coke. She was not only the first of the three models to die of anorexia, but also set the stage for her younger sister Eliana, who would die a mere six months later.

In an attempt to stop the deaths of young women who are overwhelmed by the pressures of the modeling industry’s demand for unrealistic figures that mimic Barbie’s measurements, rules concerning a model’s body weight have been initiated throughout fashion week locations. Madrid and Milan, two locations that host fashion weeks, were the first to implement an official weight to correlate with the model’s height. If models do not have a body mass index of 18.5, they are considered to be underweight and are not allowed strut down the catwalk. England, as well as the United States, has opted instead for a slap-on-the-wrist mentality, as they shook a finely polished finger at the skinny models, agents and designers that make clothes for unrealistic shapes by giving them a list of guidelines rather than actual rules to follow. Some of these suggestions include exercise, eating regularly and also recommends that models be at least 16. But these suggestions are just that — implications that have no consequences if not followed.

Nataliya Gotsii, a Ukrainian model criticized for her size-zero bony frame, believes that the mandatory BMI for models is unnecessary, claiming that current models look “natural.” When asked about eating disorders in the industry, Gotsii angrily reported, “We’re having dinners, everybody’s eating, there’s no anorexia in this business.” The next week Gotsii certainly ate one thing; her words as news broke out that the younger Ramos sister had had a heart attack, fallen down the stairs, and was found dead by her grandmother.

Every day people who are overweight, eat unhealthy foods and do not take general care of themselves have heart attacks. These people are generally between the ages of 40 and 60. When Eliana Ramos died of a heart attack two weeks ago, she was not old, eating unhealthy foods or neglecting to exercise. She suffered from what so many people in Third-World countries cannot help but avoid — malnutrition.

Pancho Dotto, founder of the Dotto modeling agency Ramos worked for, finds the claim of malnutrition “absurd.” He sees a correlation with her and her dead sister’s death as opposed to her eating habits: “It is obvious the sisters’ deaths are due to a genetic problem, and not their diet.” When Dotto was asked whether his agency had checked on the health of the models, he replied once more by stating “that is absurd,” because “nowhere in the world do they do medical checks on models.” Apparently Dotto has never been to Europe before. I suggest he start with Milan and Madrid.

Whether the subject is supermodels at fashion week or JMU girls sweating away at UREC for hours at a time, disillusionment is contagious. The women who are the Victoria’s Secret models versus the women who gaze up at the scantily clothed “angels” in the mall windows are one in the same — victims of a size-zero pant size that makes as much sense as eating a strict diet of croutons and chewing gum.

Sarah Delia is a sophomore English and art history major.