Formal letter

Carlotta Beccaria
Via Lucrezio caro 14
Turin, Italy

Oliviero Toscani
Via Agnello 306
Milan, Italy
07/12/2021

Dear Mr. Oliviero Toscani,

I am Carlotta Beccaria, a student at an international high school here in Italy who’s been analysing
in class some of your most recent works.
I am writing to you to express my concern about the advertisement you created with the model and
actress Isabelle Caro. I am talking about the picture you took of the model’s naked and emaciated
body with the words "no anorexia" displayed on top of the image.

I strongly agree with the message you wanted to send with that campaign, but i think there would
have been better ways to develop it.
We live in a society where beauty standards are extremely high, and social media is used to spread
hate and judgement on those who do not meet them.Teenagers are those who are most affected
by this. Everyday we see skinny models, influencers, actresses or simply young girls’s body pictures
and we start thinking that our bodies are not worthy of the adjective "beautiful" because they do
not look like theirs. There are people who do not care about it and are not affected by these
pictures, but there are a great number of girls whose self esteem is destroyed because of these
standards. Those who get strongly affected may develop depression and eating disorders, and in
recent years, the number of people with these illnesses has increased so much that the media is
starting to normalise them.
I know that what you and the model wanted to do was spread awareness and warn about the
dangers and consequences of eating disorders, but I believe the image was too crude. Seeing such
an unhealthy and ravaged body may be disturbing for some people, even those with the disorder.
The mind of someone who’s suffering from anorexia becomes somehow uncontrollable, and
anorexic girls who are looking at that body may still envy it because it is skinnier than theirs.
Also, something else that could happen in the minds of those who suffer is that they start believing
that they do not diserve help as their bodies are not as skinny as hers. Eating disorders affect the
mind before starting to affect the body, and they are in fact also mental illnesses, if someone is
starting to suffer from anorexia but is still not extremely skinny, it doesn’t mean that helping him
or her isn’t worth it.
Basically, what i wanted to say is that awareness should be spread in order to avoid eating
disorders, but that by showing her naked body you may have the opposite effect.
Also, I believe that the first thing you should have done when you met Isabelle was send her to the
hospital and not take pictures of her.

In conclusion, i wonder whether it is possible to remove that image from all billboards and medias
as I believe it is dangerous. I still think, though, that it is right to fight to spread awareness, but i am
100% sure that you will be able to transmit a good message without having to use anorexic
people’s bodies.
Yours sincerely,
Carlotta Beccaria