Case Study
Below is a video about 17 year old India Edmond's battle with anorexia, and her experience with thinspiration photos.
In 2013, India made a YouTube video about her illness, how it has developed and how it affected her life and relationships in a bid to prevent other young girls to falling into the same trap.
India was once a healthy 14 year old, weighing 9st. After starting to compare herself to fashion industry icons such as Alexa Chung and Cara Delevingne, she turned to looking at the #thinspiration tag on Instagram, and from there she began to develop her Eating Disorder. She would also look at pictures of her favourite supermodels- which were available in mainstream advertising campaigns, fashion magazines and runway video clips.
“I loved their thigh gaps – and I’ve always hated my legs,” India says. “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
After six months, her eating disorder had intensified. Fuelled by the advice and encouragement of other ED Sufferers over Instagram, her weight had dropped to 6st and her mother took her to hospital.
"I would look at my selfies and think I looked pretty. But I looked like a skeleton – I looked like I was dying." India recalls. She would secretly take selfies from her hospital bed and post them on Instagram, receiving thousands of messages from girls who wanted to look just like her.
