In a quick response to the death from anorexia of Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston, 21, 88 lbs in a 5’7" frame, the main fashion model agencies in Brazil announced that from now on they will require medical examinations, every six months, from all their models.
Reston, who died in São Paulo, on Tuesday, November 13, had been taken to a hospital on October 25, due to a kidney malfunction, but the doctors couldn’t save her after years of starving herself to death.
The new measures were announced in São Paulo, during a press conference in the south side of town, this Friday, November 17. The meeting with the press was called by, among others, representatives from model agencies Ford, One, Megal Model, Merlin and L’Equipe, which employed Ana Carolina.
Denise Céspedes, the director of Ford Model in Brazil announced: "We are going to ask complete hemograms from all the girls. We want to show that those adolescents who search for perfection and go on crazy diets dreaming of becoming a fashion model are not going to make it."
The agencies haven’t established a date for when the new requirement will start to be enforced. They agree, however, that the new prerequisite will be a powerful weapon to fight anorexia and bulimia as well as other health problem among the would-be, beginning and seasoned models.
Simone Lascani, director of Elite, told reporters that modeling agencies haven’t required a medical examination from their candidates until now, as it happens in other professions, because the models are not hired literally by the agencies. "Models sign a limited-time working contract with the companies".
"Fashion models agencies have a very important social role. I am intent on ending this madness of girls who subject themselves to crazy diets," said Mega Model Agency’s director, Elie Hadid. Beauty that comes from a healthy body is more important than thinness, says Hadid: "A model can’t be squalid."
He also said that he favors a law that would require a periodic medical examination for all models in Brazil.
Brazilians, this Friday, November 17, once again buried a young lady who had starved herself to death. For five years she had undergone treatment for anorexia.
Carla Sobrado Casalle, the 21-year-old girl, was 1.70 meters (5.7) and weighed 45 kg (99 lbs). She was buried in Araraquara, a city 170 miles from São Paulo, where she was born. She spent three days in the hospital before dying.
Casalle had been living, however, for three years, with an aunt in São Paulo, while studying fashion in a private college.