London, Dec 30 (IANS) French actress and model Isabelle Caro, whose anorexic figure was on display in an Italian ad campaign in 2007, has died at the age of 28.

Caro died Nov 17 after returning to France from a job in Tokyo, according to her longtime acting instructor, Daniele Dubreuil-Prevot, reports dailymail.co.uk.

Dubreuil-Prevot said she did not know the cause of Caro's death but informed that Caro "had been sick for a long time".

Caro, who maintained her own blog, had once shared that she had suffered from anorexia since she was 13 as the result of a "difficult childhood".

When her ad campaign was splashed in 2007, she wrote: "I've hidden myself and covered myself for too long. Now I want to show myself fearlessly, even though I know my body arouses repugnance. I want to recover because I love life and the riches of the universe. I want to show young people how dangerous this illness is."

Caro also appeared on Jessica Simpson's TV show "The Price of Beauty" where she discussed her body issues, and in 2008 she released an autobiography called "The Little Girl Who Didn't Want to Get Fat".