Skin Deep

  You may have seen this woman on my blog before. Her name is Isabelle Caro, and she was a french model, author, and actress. Was because she passed away recently after returning home from a gig with a respiratory illness related to her severe underweight condition.

  Isabelle was known in modelling circles a long while but became notorious when her anti-anorexia photo display was banned from Milan Fashion Week in 2007.  In the photographs her 5'5" frame held a mere 70 pounds and she had previously survived comas.

  Her disease was spawned by a childhood spent living with a severely mentally ill mother, one who would measure and weigh her, praying that the living doll would never grow. Little Isabelle became petrified of eventual puberty, and the then-13 year old lost over 10 kilograms, never to grow again until it was too late.

  This photo alerted the world, and Isabelle herself, to just how severe her condition as well as that of many young models had become.

  Terrified that her tiny frame was being looked up to by girls, Isabelle Caro began to fight her disease. She spoke out about unrealistic beauty and told her tragic story in the hope that young people would listen to her reality. She shared her affirmations, her struggles, and photography on her blog; taking care to remind others not to follow in her path. 

 Isabelle spent a mere 28 years on our planet, much of is suffering from the torment of bodily obsession. 80% of young girls are terrified of being seen as fat. The most common medical procedures on teens are purely cosmetic. I've even risked my own life countless times by suddenly halting taking seizure drugs, each time deluded into thinking they'll make me fat. Seeking, acquiring, and maintaining a certain type of beauty is financially and emotionally devastating. We are all part of a culture that turns women mad, destined to seek artificial facades for internal ills, to take brilliant minds from our earth because of pursuit of an outward lie. 

  It was even noticed with the messages related to yesterday's post. People commented over whether or not they thought the woman was beautiful, but missed the point. The lady featured would be near skeletal without the obvious surgical "enhancements". She has a sunken chest and is devoid of musculature, yet is regarded as the standard to which women are expected to measure themselves by. And there is something seriously wrong with that. 

"I thought this could be a chance to use my suffering to get a message across, and finally put an image on what thinness represents and the danger it leads to -- which is death...to make people react, for young girls who see this to think: 'Oh, so that's what lies behind the beautiful clothes, the hair, the image that we are shown of fashion.'" - Isabelle Caro, 2007