Emaciated model became a symbol of anorexia's effect on fashion world

Isabelle Caro, a French actress and model whose emaciated image in a shocking Italian ad campaign dramatized the problem of anorexia in the fashion world, has died at the age of 28.

News of her death on Nov. 17 in France was not released until Dec. 29. Ms. Caro's longtime acting instructor, Daniele Dubreuil-Prevot, told the Associated Press that the model had been sick for a long time" and had spent years in and out of hospitals. The cause of death could not be learned.

Ms. Caro had said she began suffering from anorexia when she was 13, and she weighed about 59 pounds when the photos that made her famous were taken.

After a 21-year-old Brazilian model died of the eating disorder, Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani produced a 2007 campaign for an Italian fashion house in which Ms. Caro appeared naked, looking over her shoulder at the camera, with vertebrae and facial bones protruding. The photo appeared in newspapers and on billboards under the slogan "No Anorexia."

The campaign received widespread attention in Europe and the United States, and Ms. Caro spoke out often about anorexia and the menace of eating disorders on the fashion industry.

In 2008, Ms. Caro published a book in France titled "The Little Girl Who Didn't Want to Get Fat." She served as a member of the jury on Top Model France and worked periodically as a film and television actress. She was interviewed by Jessica Simpson for the VH1 show "The Price of Beauty."

Some groups working with anorexics warned that the attention paid to Ms. Caro did a disservice to others afflicted with the disorder.

Ms. Caro's Facebook page, which quickly filled with condolences in several languages, says she was born Sept. 12, 1982. She took violin lessons and then acting lessons in Nantes and Versailles, according to Dubreuil-Prevot.

- Associated Press