Checking for understanding

Please answer the following questions based on the video above.

1.  What is the difference between body dysmorphic disorder and anorexia?

2. Describe the eye-tracking technique used in this study.

3. What is the key difference between people with BDD and health participants in the eye-tracking test?

4.  Which symptom of BDD (and often, anorexia) is linked to the way that these participants look at human faces?

Although this video is about body dysmorphic disorder, a similar test is used when looking at people living with anorexia.  Watch the following video. How does this technique compare to the one in the video above?

This final video shows that the distortion of body size is the result of information that we process in our environment.  How might the findings in this video be linked to the argument that the promotion of thinness in the media has an effect on eating disorders?

Study 1. Cornelissen et al (2017)

Cornelissen et al (2017) investigated the extent to which patients with anorexia nervosa over-estimate their body size.  The researchers took 3D scans of 15 women who had symptoms of anorexia and 15 healthy control women.  Then, using a 3D modelling package to build avatars from the scans, they accurately manipulated the images to create a range of avatars reflecting different measures of body mass index [BMI]. The women were asked to choose the avatar that was the most accurate representation of their current body size. The results show that women who are currently receiving treatment for anorexia showed an overestimation of body size.  In addition, the higher the woman's BMI, the higher the overestimation. By contrast, the women acting as healthy controls were able to accurately estimate their body size irrespective of their own BMI.

Study 2. McKenzie et al (1993)

McKenzie et al (1993) interviewed women with eating disorders and a control group about their body weight, shape, and ideals, and got them to estimate their own size in relation to other women. They found that when asked to compare themselves with controls who were the same size, women who had been diagnosed with an eating disorder tended to overestimate their own body weight. When asked to indicate their ideal body weight, women with eating disorders chose a significantly lighter weight than the control group. The participants were then given a chocolate bar and a soft drink to consume. Following this, they were asked to re-estimate their body weight. The women with eating disorders judged that their size has increased, while the control group judged that their size had not changed.