KIC+ Manchester Volume 3, February 2014 | Page 8

The Features Page

8

Isabelle Caro became known as "the face of Anorexia"

Can you imagine feeling so much pressure from your family or friends that you reach a point where you start to starve yourself? Imagine feeling so bad with yourself that you just hit rock bottom. You might think it’ll never happen to you, but believe me, you could be the next. Isabelle Caro’s story is not the easiest story to tell; she may have been a model and an actress but what truly identified her was her disease.

Having a healthy lifestyle and body image is a very important thing in everyone’s life, shame is, not everyone has it. Body image can be affected by many particular things; the media, society, friends or family. An unhealthy body image can damage your confidence, self-esteem, and relationships leading to

depression, or in this case, starvation mode. Eating disorders like anorexia have always been a known subject amongst society and it’s becoming more and more common everyday. You are not aware of this but someone’s disease could be your fault. You can save someone’s life as much as you can ruin it. Out of your mouth comes the power of life and death and what you say as a joke can be taken the wrong way. We have to gain awareness of this so people know what’s happening.

Isabelle claimed she suffered from anorexia from a really early age. Her mother would threaten to ground her if she got bigger because she didn’t want a fat daughter.

“My mom would measure my height every week just to see if I was getting bigger.”

At 13 years old, anorexia was Isabelle’s first love, her eating disorder reached its lowest point when she turned 20 and only weighed 55 pounds (25kgs).

She became famous for her controversial anti-anorexia campaign, in which she appeared bare-naked with her bones almost sticking through her skin.

“I don’t think girls will see me and think ‘Oh! I want to be that thin!’ look at me, my hair fell off, I barely have teeth left, my skin is dry, who would want to look like a skeleton? I did this because I want to advise people to not follow the same path I did…”

Isabelle didn’t know how to eat like a normal person anymore, anorexia changed her life and she regretted it everyday, starving herself didn’t make her feel any better, in fact, she felt even worse.

“I paint freckles on my face because they make my eyes pop, I guess if my eyes are sparkling no one will pay attention to the rest of me”

After fighting through anorexia for years and after going through so many different treatments, Isabelle found out that there was nothing she could do, she was too ill already. She died from respiratory problems in 2010.

As far as I’m concerned no one should feel that bad about themselves, body image is important and you should help people so they can have a healthy one. Remember, every action matters, spoken and unspoken. Your words are powerful.

By Sabrina Fernandez

anorexia -

A DISEASE

Or

A fashion statement?