A Brazilian Fashion Model’s Death Due to Eating Disorder

For Ana Carolina Reston Marcan was from kleinsaf been her dream to be super homunculus, this dream became reality. At 21, in 2006, she do the headlines almost the world. Not for her illustrationing life history, save for her awing death, attributed to complications due to anorexia. Jundiai town, Sao Paulo, Brazil. A brown-haired immature girl walks on to the hostel at the local beauty fence. Below, her parents, wedged at the front of a cheering audience, clap enthusiastically as a judge slips a green and white sash over their daughters head and pronounces her the Queen of Jundiai, 1999.Her fret wasnt surprised The separatewise girls were podgy and had bottoms, she said later. She won because she was slim and elegant. It doesnt bet an earth-shattering achievement. But for 13-twelvemonth-old Ana Carolina Reston Marcan it was ane step nearer her dream of becoming a supermodel. It would shoot down Reston (who dropped Marcan from her professional name) seven long age to arrive, by which time she would be naturalizeing as far afield as Hong Kong and Japan, for designers as sound cognize as Giorgio Armani and Dior.But it was on 14 November last year that she in conclusion crossed over from being a successful catwalk model to count on the cover of e very(prenominal) magazine and newspaper in Brazil, and piss headlines around the globe. Not for her moulding, but for her agonising death, attributed to complications arising from anorexia. In a year in which some(prenominal) skinny chic (wearing oversized clothes on piddling corpse frames) and the American size 00 (an emaciated UK size two, or a waist the same(p) as a typical seven-year-olds) was the height of port in celebrity-land, Restons decease seems all the more poignant.She was also the second model to die from an consume disorder during 2006. In August, at a mould show in Uruguay, 22-year-old Luisel Ramos suffered a heart attack thought to be the result of anorexia. Although anore xia isnt the preserve of the means perseverance, its hardly surprising that Restons death has shone a spotlight on the stylus the business treats its models, and more significantly, on how mordant our current perception of female beauty can be. Restons short disembodied spirit began in Pitangueiras private hospital in Jundiai on 29 whitethorn 1985.She was born into a comfortable, middle-class family her father, Narciso Marcan, worked for a German multinational plot of ground her fetch, Miriam Reston, sold jewellery. They were neither desperately poor nor slimyly rich and lived in a small but elegant bungalow on the byskirts of town. From an beforehand(predicate) age Reston wanted to be a model, partly in order to provide her family with a better life. Its not clear why she matte up such responsibility, but in the early Nineties her father was diagnosed with both Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease and was later made redundant.Even before then, though, her find remembers th e child bid Reston spiriting bras and high heels from her c withdrawt and pirouetting around the house in them, asking hoi polloi to take her photograph. Then one day in 1999, on the give instruction bus home, she spotted a sign announcing a beauty contest for the Queen of Jundiai. She leapt off and signed herself up. A few weeks later she took her mother on an all expenses-paid luxury trip to Rio her prize for winning the competition. When they returned, a invent agent offered to introduce her to Ford, one of Brazils top modelling agencies, for a fee of ? 100. The family accepted.Restons career took off nearly immediately and it soon became unmixed that she had her eye on the big prize becoming a supermodel, like fellow Brazilian Gisele. Restons friends thought that for the more glamorous catwalk and editorial modelling she was, at plainly over 5ft 6in, too short. But she wouldnt be throw off off she altered her height on her publicity shots and claimed she was just over 5ft 7in. And she seemed to get away with it. In July 2003, after four successful eld at Ford, she signed to Elite, one of the biggest agencies in Brazil, a move which catapulted her from teenage wannabe to serious model.Still Reston wanted to work abroad, and in January 2004 she finally made her first trip overseas. She was displace to Guangzhou, a Chinese city not far from Hong Kong, for three months. But although no one can snare an exact date on when she began to suffer from anorexia, one former booker, who refuses to be named, believes that it was here things started to unravel for the then 18-year-old. Reston, like so some other teenage models, travelled unaccompanied by either a personalised friend or family member, psyche who could help her negotiate a way through the lonely castings, where personal criticism came as standard. She arrived in China, explains a booker, and the guys looked at her and said, Youre fat. She took this very personally. Her unhappiness was evi dent in the letters she sent home. In one to her mother, Reston describes arriving in that big place. She goes on I felt so small, the city so big. I didnt understand whateverthing It didnt go right. I failed. Her self-reliance was being destroyed. Back in Brazil, Restons descent into anorexia (which ultimately resulted in her fall from 8st to 6st) became all too obvious.When Laura Ancona, a journalist at the Brazilian fashion magazine Quem, befriended Reston towards the end of 2004, she sensed immediately that something was wrong. Reston, she says, only ever drank increase juice, and after her death was found to hurl survived on a nourishment of apples and tomatoes. As Ancona recalls She said, I cant eat any more. She told me she tried to eat but felt like vomiting. She knew she had a problem, but didnt k right away what she was suffering from. I think I was the first person to explain it to her I knew she was anorexic, because someone in my family had suffered in the same way. fit in to Ancona, Restons condition was common endureledge. Everyone knew she was ill, she says. The other girls, the agencies, everyone. Dont believe it when they say they didnt. Restons aunt, Mirtes Reston, who plans to present a petition to the government demanding locomote to monitor the modelling indus yield, is more direct. These girls are white slaves, she says. We want models to have rights. At the moment they are given no pension, no make They just take the person away from their family and abandon them far away. In his private clinic in Jardins, a leafy, upmarket neighbourhood of Sao Paulo, psychologist Dr Marco Antonio De Tommaso, who voluntarily runs a fortnightly drop-in clinic at two of the citys largest modelling agencies, Elite and LEquipe, is preparing some strains on take in disorders. Tommaso has spent 11 years working with models and given consultations to about 2,000 of them, including some of the countrys most famous faces. He also treated Reston. Tommasos take on the fashion industry, and what he calls the dictatorship of beauty, is bleak.He regards Restons experience as typical, citing in particular the way in which new faces are parachuted into the most demanding and big(a) of worlds when they are unable to cope. They experience lots of changes all at the same time, says Tommaso. They move city, they move state, they start living alone, and the work is very demanding. Everything happens very quickly, and it is all so unpredictable. there are no official studies to put forward the link between the fashion industry and eating disorders, but many experts point to a clear correlation between the two.In a letter from 40 doctors at the Eating Disorders Service and Research Unit at Kings College London to the British Fashion Council last October, Professor Janet Treasure wrote There is no doubt there is cause and effect here. The fashion industry showcases models with extreme body shapes, and this is undoubtedly one of the f actors adding to young girls underdeveloped disorders. This is borne out by Tommasos experience. If someone is just a tiny chip shot bigger than the industry demands, he says, they are treated as if they were morbidly obese.This encourages a pattern of beauty that is absolutely unreal. Such pressures, he continues, lead many such women to get up up what he calls an arsenal of anorexia supernumerary diets, prescription and illegal drugs, starving themselves. He remembers one young model even using pills for fighting intestinal worms in order to lose weight. Journalist Laura Ancona is not surprised Ive lost count of how many time Ive seen models vomiting in the toilets at fashion events, or sniffing cocaine, or 13-year-old girls fainting because theyre not eating properly. Anorexia is obviously not an illness exclusive to the fashion industry, or Brazil. According to the Norwich-based Eating Disorders Association, between one and two per cent of young cock-a-hoop women worldw ide suffer from the eating disorder and most, like Reston, are 15-25 years old. It kills somewhere between 13 and 20 per cent of its victims. Its not k forthwithn exactly what causes anorexia, but Tommaso asserts that, for young models at least, professional demands can be a very strong factor. There are other pressures, too.As Tommaso points out Often, low-income families begin to see their offspring as the chicken that lays gold bollock and expect them to support the spotless household. The models, in turn, begin to push themselves harder and harder, placing great demands on their bodies in the hope they will earn more money. for certain Reston faced problems at home. The familys life savings had been stolen in 2002 and because they only had her be sick fathers pension of around ? 250 a month to live on, Miriam Reston looked increasingly to her daughters income. She was my crutch, she explains, academic term in the breakfast room of her sisters pousada, or guesthouse. By 20 04, the 18-year-old Reston was supporting her entire family. And despite her experiences in China, she continued to dream of travelling the world modelling, in order to earn more money to help her mother build a new house. In August 2005 Reston called her employers at the Elite fashion agency and told them she was leaving she had received an offer from an agent to work in Mexico.They urged her to stay, arguing that the Mexican modelling market required voluptuous girls, whereas Reston was now an increasingly skinny model. She wasnt listening to anyone any more, says her former booker. In Mexico things went from good-for-nothing to worse. On her second day there Reston emailed home that she was sharing an flatcar with 17 other models and was very unhappy. Other Brazilian models who bumped into an increasingly miserable-looking Reston at castings began to worry about her emotional state. One of them, Cynthia, left a note for her Girlie, were very worried about you.Please come out w ith us or stay at home and eat something eat whatever you want, OK? Eventually, Reston became so unhappy that Lica Kohlrausch, the owner of LEquipe, was persuaded by some of Restons c one timerned friends and colleagues to behave for her to fly back to Brazil. We brought Ana back after she did some work for Giorgio Armani and a representative rang me to say she was too thin, Kohlrausch told the press after Restons death. It worried me and I acted immediately, but I didnt see any physical signs of anorexia when she came back. On her return, Reston went to work in Japan for three months. When she came home again, in late 2005, she was barely recognisable gaunt and colourless. As Miriam Reston recalls, I looked at her and said, My daughter, what have they make to you? I wish these people could see what they have done to her. She didnt deserve this. Now seriously worried about her health, Restons family sent her to stay with an uncle on the Sao Paulo coast. He, too, knew that som ething was very wrong. On a note dated 19 January 2006, he set out a daily routine for Reston to follow as part of her recuperation.It read 1 Wake up, pray. 2 Strong, positive thoughts. 3 Pray. 4 Always feed yourself. 5 Pray. Despite the familys intervention, Reston continued eating less and less, and work opportunities began to ebb away. By the middle of last year, her career as a model had some ground to a halt. Instead, to try and make ends meet, she was handing out fliers publicizing nightclubs in Sao Paulo, earning just over ? 10 a night. But there was some comfort she fell in love with a 19-year-old model from Sao Paulo, called Bruno Setti. I didnt know what love was until you kissed me, she wrote to him, just over a month before her death. Thank you for giving me the hugs that make me secure and the conversations that comfort me. On Friday 29 September, Dr Tommaso sat waiting in a room at LEquipe, with a list of six models he was due to see that afternoon. Reston was boo ked in for her second appointment. But as the minutes ticked by, Tommaso got the feeling it would be another no-show. I thought it was a shame, he sighs. The agency contacted her and she said shed forgotten.Maybe it was true, maybe it was the anorexia. We cant be sure. In Jundiai, meanwhile, Reston complained to her mother that members of the agency were pestering her to see a doctor. She told me they were going mad saying she was ill, recalls her mother. Everyone was telltale(a) her she was ill But, like all these girls, she denied it was a problem. But her mother was lovely sure by then that Restons health problems needed to be communicate sooner rather than later. And then suddenly, it was too late. At home on Sunday 22 October, Reston began to complain of a pain in her kidneys.Miriam Reston didnt know it, but for the last couple of months her daughter had been taking a cocktail of brawny prescription drugs, for pain relief and slimming. Reston was admitted to the Samaritan o Hospital in Sao Paulo and two days later, on 25 October, she was moved to the Hospital Municipal dos Servidores Publicos, where almost immediately she was admitted to the intensive care unit, where she spent her last 21 days. Her demise was agonising, a plastic tube inserted down her throat, unable to tell anyone how she felt, although the separate in her eyes must have made that pretty obvious.Patches of her once long brown hair had fallen out, too. Her death certificate, for which relatives paid around 50p, cites her time of death as 7. 10am and lists the cause of death as doubled organ failure, septicaemia, urinary infection. Coldly it adds Leaves no children. Leaves no property. Leaves no will. inside hours of her death Ana Carolina Reston Marcan was famous across the world. Her death made her a diseased person in Brazil her image was splashed across the front pages of virtually every newspaper and magazine, and across the international media.Jundiais teenage beauty fagg ot had become the emaciated model who had starved herself to death. Debate raged. There was an blush of emotion from other anorexic girls who saw in Reston a plot of ground of themselves and, simultaneously, a bitter rebuke from pro-anorexia communities, whose members see anorexia as a lifestyle choice. Restons boyfriend requested her page on the popular Brazilian intercommunicate site Orkut be deleted after her death because it was targeted by anorexia supporters posting offensive comments.Critics of the fashion industry, on the other hand, held her up as an example of how it was destroying the lives of young, would-be(prenominal) models, and in the weeks that followed, the deaths of two further Brazilian girls in identical circumstances, one a fashion student, brought further calls for the regulation of this notoriously mysterious business. Already, changes seem to be taking place. Following Uruguayan model Luisel Ramoss death, models with a body mass index (BMI) of less tha n 18 classified as penny-pinching by the World Health Organisation (between 18. and 25 is considered healthy) were banned in September from Madrid Fashion Week. In the wake of Restons death, Brazilian models now require medical certificates in order to take part in catwalk events. The Italian fashion organisation Camera Della Moda Italiana is also considering introducing measures to prevent any catwalk models at risk appearing at Milan Fashion Week in February. More recently, the British Fashion Council, which organises London Fashion Week, has prepared similar guidelines that it will eventually send to all designers and modelling agencies.It is late afternoon and in the cobbled centre of Pirapora do Bom Jesus, Miriam Reston Marcan pulls up the shutters of her new jewellery fail recently named Ana Carolina Metals and goes inside. Weeping, she picks up a letter written by her daughter shortly before her death, but which was never sent. If I could, Id like to go back to being fo ur, clinging on to you as if I were still in your womb, so that nobody could harm me, it reads, in curly, teenage handwriting. But paragon wanted my life to change. Reston sighs. I didnt know what my daughter had could kill, but I knew it had to be treated. But my daughter rejected me, she said she was OK. She stares up at a portrait of Ana hung at the back of the shop part of an advertising campaign which has now become a sort of shrine to her deceased person daughter. Do you know what I think at night time? she asks. I think that shes in the ground and the ants are eating her. I dont know how Im