ANOTHER promising young model has reportedly died from malnutrition - just six months after her sister, who was also a model, died from heart failure caused by starvation.
Miss Eliana Ramos, 18, was found dead in her home in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, on Tuesday.
According to local television reports, preliminary examinations indicate her death was due to a heart attack caused by malnutrition.
Six months ago, her sister Luisel, 22, sparked a worldwide debate about 'size zero' models when she died of a heart attack moments after stepping off the catwalk at a Montevideo hotel.
She had reportedly consumed nothing but lettuce leaves and diet soft drinks for three months before she collapsed.
The sisters were supposed to appear alongside each other on the catwalk the night Luisel died, but she collapsed before the show's finale.
The girls' father, Mr Luis Ramos, is a former soccer player for the Uruguayan national squad.
He and his wife were reportedly on holiday when Eliana's body was found.
The family's tragic double loss comes as the fashion world debates how to protect the health of painfully thin runway models.
It is a particularly strident debate in Latin America, where anorexia was blamed for the deaths of model Ana Carolina Reston and three other women in Brazil in December alone.
The Council of Fashion of Designers of America recently issued voluntary guidelines that included banning models younger than 16 and requiring those identified with eating disorders to get professional help.
Italian designers agreed to abide by similar guidelines in December.
In September, the Madrid Fashion Week in Spain banned models with a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18 for gracing the runway.
The standard accepted by the World Health Organisation is that anyone with an BMI of less than 18.5 is underweight.
BMI is calculated by dividing your weight by the square of your height.
Despite medical evidence to the contrary, model friends of the Ramos sisters denied that either suffered from an eating disorder.
'Whenever something happens, they try to relate it to eating problems,' said model Erika Fallen. - Wire agencies.
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