Body Size And Body Image
Body image disturbances and the eating disordersDisturbancesin body image are a defining feature of AN and BN and an importantcause of disordered eating behaviors. Hilde Bruch, an earlypsychodynamic eating disorder theorist, argued that the misperceptionof the self as fat and the absence of concern regarding the objectiveemaciation are essential defining symptoms of AN. The idea that body image disturbances are a defining property has since been extended to BN,and in fact, it is included as a requisite symptom for both disordersin the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders thEdition.Empiricalefforts to examine body image disturbances in the ED have focused ontwo distinct dimensions, perceptual body-size distortion and evaluativedissatisfaction. Perceptual body-size distortion is defined as the inability to accurately estimate oneâ??s body size and has been measured using a variety of nonword-based body-sizeestimation techniques such as the moveable caliper technique and thedistorted photograph technique for a review. The discrepancy between the subjective estimate andobjective measurement of body size is used as an indicator ofperceptual deficits. Although findings suggest that individuals with ANand BN overestimate body size, and,an important limitation of this research is that the specific constructbeing measured by the techniques is not clearly understood and.Although many investigators argue that the body size overestimation isan indicator of underlying perceptual processing abnormalities thatinterfere with oneâ??s ability to accurately perceive body size, the factthat participants are asked to estimate their body size without seeingan image of the self either in a mirror or photograph indicates thatperceptual processes are not involved in the task. Rather the body sizeestimation techniques require that participants activate or evenconstruct a memory of the physical self to use as the basis of theirjudgement. This suggests thatrather than a perceptual problem, the personâ??s cognitiverepresentations of the physical self are inaccurate, reflect old statesof the physical self, or perhaps are cognitive products based oncomparisons to unrealistic standards.The second dimension ofbody image disturbance that has been examined is body dissatisfaction.Body dissatisfaction is an enduring memory structure that reflects anegative evaluation of the physical self. A meta-analysis of studies completed by showed that women with AN and BN are significantly more dissatisfiedwith their body size and shape compared to control women, and theeffect size was large. They highlight the significance of this findinggiven that recent studies have shown that a majority of American womenhold negative attitudes toward their physical self Rodin, Silberstein& Striegle-Moore,. Furthermore, high levels of bodydissatisfaction are predictive of feelings of fatness, dieting andbingeing behaviors and negative affect states.Recentlyeating disorder research has shifted focus to factors that contributeto body image disturbances in adolescent and young adult women. Agrowing collection of studies has shown that changing cultural normsshifting toward thinner female body ideal and media messages thathighlight extreme thinness increase body dissatisfaction in normalsamples of high school and college-aged women and.However, one important question that has received less attention is,what are the characteristics of women who are most vulnerable tocultural messages regarding ideal body weight and most likely tointernalize those unrealistic images as standard to evaluate the self?Given that messages about ideal female body weight are pervasive in ourculture, yet only approximately % of the adolescent and young adultpopulation develops eating disorder symptoms, important individualdifferences must mediate their effects.Self-concept disturbances and the eating disorders: theoretical and empirical perspectives
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