Perceptual Not Attitudinal Factors Predict the Accuracy of Estimating Other Women’s Bodies in Both Women With Anorexia Nervosa and Controls

Disturbance in how one’s body shape and size is experienced, usually including over-estimation of one’s own body size, is a core feature of the diagnostic criteria of anorexia nervosa (AN). Is this over-estimation specific to women with AN’s judgments of their own body? Or is it just a general feature of their judgments about all bodies? If the latter, it would be consistent with a general error in the perception of body size potentially linked to the use of a different set of visual cues for judging body size. If the former, then this suggests that the over-estimation of own body size has a strong attitudinal component and may be part of the psycho-pathology of their condition. To test this hypothesis, 20 women with AN and 80 control observers estimated the body size of 46 women. The results show a strong effect of perceptual factors in estimating body size for both controls and women with AN. This result is consistent with size over-estimation of own body in AN having a strong attitudinal basis and being a core feature of the psycho-pathology of the condition.