Anorexic French model Isabelle Caro dies of lung infection

French model Isabelle Caro, who famously posed nude in 2007 for an anti-anorexia billboard, has died. The cause of death was a lung infection. Caro became the face of anorexia after a graphic ad campaign that displayed her rail-thin body.

In a 2007 interview, Caro said she weighed as little as 55 pounds at one point and had gone into a coma due to her eating disorder, Daily Beast reports.

Caro died Nov. 17 at the age of 28, media reports say. One story quotes her longtime acting instructor Daniele Dubreuil-Prevot as saying "she did not know the cause of death but that Caro 'had been sick for a long time,' referring to her anorexia."

It has been well documented that women and girls are much more likely than men to develop an eating disorder. The National Institute of Mental Health defines the disorder this way:

"Anorexia nervosa is characterized by emaciation, a relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy weight, a distortion of body image and intense fear of gaining weight, a lack of menstruation among girls and women, and extremely disturbed eating behavior."

Treatment can be found in a combination of therapy and medications, this Mayo Clinic report says, Los Angeles Times reports.