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A teenager who developed anorexia after becoming obsessed with finding 'thinspiration' photos on Instagram has warned how using social media led her to starve herself.

India Edmonds, 17, developed an eating disorder at the age of 14 after becoming obsessed with comparing herself to celebrities like Cara Delevingne and Alexa Chung, as well as other anorexic children and teenagers.

It comes as a Mirror Online investigation found that children as young as 10 are secretly communicating via the site, sharing tips on how to lose weight, purge, and starve themselves for days at a time - without their parents knowledge.

India was just 14 when she signed up to Instagram and began using it to find what is known as 'thinspiration' – images of incredibly slim women used to inspire weight loss.

“Everyone at school had an Instagram account,” India tells Mirror Online. “Girls put photos up and I always thought they looked thinner and prettier than me.”

Still at school and weighing a healthy 9st, India became obsessed with finding pictures of airbrushed supermodels she wanted to look like.

“I loved their thigh gaps – and I’ve always hated my legs,” India admits. “Once I remember walking along in shorts and the tops of my thighs were rubbing. I hated that. And a boy at school said I had short, chubby legs and that stuck with me.

"I didn’t upload any photos of myself because I was too ashamed of the way I looked.

“I would take at least 15 selfies every day but I would keep them on a personal photo diary.”

India soon began making herself sick and cutting out food from her diet until she was eating just three cubes of jelly a day and an eggcup of grapefruit juice.

On top of a strict diet, India followed a gruelling exercise regime which involved three hours at the gym and swimming pool.

After six months of dieting and taking advice from other sufferers on Instagram, India’s weight had plummeted to just six stone. She blacked out at home and her mother rushed her to hospital.

Despite "looking like a skeleton" by her own admission, India hadn't realised she was anorexic until that moment.

She said: "I would look at my selfies and think I looked pretty. But I looked like a skeleton – I looked like I was dying."

India spent seven months in hospital from March 2013 – September 2013 during three of which she was force-fed through a tube.

She said: "Doctors told me I would die if I didn’t eat – but even then I still couldn’t bring myself to."

Incredibly, despite the gravity of the situation, India continued to take selfies from her hospital bed.

She said: "I started taking more selfies than ever. It was part of my secret dieting regime that I tried to hide from the doctors."

The schoolgirl would sneak off to the toilet to continue her gruelling regime of thousands of stomach crunches, squats and jumping jacks, taking more selfies as she exercised.

She said: "I loved looking back at my pictures to see how my body was changing. My favourite pose was standing in front of a mirror and photographing my thigh gap and seeing how big it was getting."

Chillingly, India received thousands of messages from girls who wanted to look like she did at her lowest weight – skeletal.

Now 17, India is well into recovery and weighs a healthier 7.5 stone.

But a Mirror Investigation has found hundreds of children all over the world are still using Instagram to share pro-anorexia tips away from prying adult eyes.

The children’s secret network, with 'members' as young as 10 or 12, call themselves the eating disorder army.

During our investigation, we came across 12-year-old Anna*.

She smiles proudly in her latest selfie as she shows off her jutting ribcage.

There are thousands of comments.

“WOW! How many purges?” asks one 13-year-old user. “I wish I was that skinny."

Her public profile tells us a lot about her: She’s 12 –just , her height (5ft), her goal weight (96lbs), her current weight (101lbs), her binging record (16 days), her daily calorie goal (0) …

Each day she tells her followers on the network how she’s trying to eat a little less and purge a little harder. She admits her parents don’t know she’s ill. And she doesn’t want them to find out – her Instagram name is a pseudonym.

She has over 2,000 followers. Some are British, some are American, German, French, Italian. She has followers from all over the world.

But despite the language barriers, these Instagram users all have two things in common: They are all children, and they are all secretly fighting eating disorders.

Kate*, 14, is one of Anna’s followers – another child battling anorexia. Her most recent post is a photo of herself lying on her bed, her hipbones stick out of her underwear, her ribcage protruding.

“0 calories today,” she has captioned the snap.

“You look great,” writes Harriet*, 15, who follows her. A click on her profile shows dozens on photos of her own painfully-thin legs.

“Hate my fatty and disgusting legs. But I just have to be strong and go on and have the control of what I eat and then they will probably become thinner,” she writes.

Eleven-year-old Soffy* has been taking photos of herself on the scales for the last three months. She’s dropped 7kg.

She shares a photo of her frail torso. “One like = one hour of fasting,” says the caption. It has 27 likes.

Her profile reads: “I’m sad, starving, and my wrists hurt.”

As our search goes on, the results become more horrifying.

Thirteen-year-old Jasmine* has shared pictures featuring self harm with the words “I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop.”

Her account is full of memes. “Pretty girls don’t eat.” says one. “I must lose weight, I MUST LOSE WEIGHT,” says another.

Dolly* from Denmark is 14. She says she’s looking for a friend to “tell me I look fat, be the living ana.”

She tells her followers she is half way through a 48-hour fast.

Many of these images are accompanied by an Instagram warning: “Content Advisory, Please be advised: These images may contain graphic content. For information and support with eating disorders please tap on learn more.”

Clicking on “learn more” takes the user to a help page set up by Instagram, which gives a run down of signs, tips and resources for anyone suffering with an eating disorder – including links to support groups and advice helplines.

The photo-sharing site also encourages users to abide by a number of “Community Guidelines” which prohibit the sharing of distressful images and the encouragement of dangerous behaviours.

Users can report distressing content or others posting these images, and a support team will review this as soon as possible.

But Lucie Russell, Director of Campaigns at Young Minds, a charity dedicated to supporting children with mental health issues, says this just isn’t enough.

“Seeing these girls connecting in this way is very concerning and very worrying,” Russell says. “They are encouraging each other to get thinner and thinner and no one is there to stop it.

“All social media sites say you have to be a certain age to use them, but proper age verification is complicated and the people who run these sites aren’t going to enforce that in reality.

“Some users suffering from eating disorders do use Instagram for support – and we know peer support is very important in recovery. So the answer isn’t just to take everything down.

“Instagram should employ people to monitor what is going on and remove images that are inciting. They set up this site and they have a responsibility.

“I would urge Instagram to conduct an urgent review of the content on their site, and how they are signposting young people to support.”

A spokesperson for Instagram said: "Instagram is a place where people can share their lives with others through photographs, but anybody found encouraging or urging users to embrace anorexia or other eating disorders will result in a disabled account without warning.

“We believe that communication regarding these behaviours in order to create awareness, come together for support and to facilitate recovery is important, but that Instagram is not the place for active promotion or glorification of eating disorders."

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*Names have been changed.

Help and guidance for sufferers is available here from B-EAT and Young Minds.