Perception and body-image representations in young female anorexic dansers

Speaker: Isabel Urdapilletta Laboratoire "Cognition et Usages", Université de Paris 8

Date: 14 April 2005

Summary:
Modified body image is a sign of mental anorexia and more generally of food behaviour problems. This pathology is sometimes seen in dansers. We will examine the nature of this seemingly disturbed image by studying the perceptive dimensions (body weight estimation) and ideals (body weight satisfaction estimation) of body image.
We use a video technique that manipulates a photograph of the participant to make her appear larger and asking her to adjust the photo until it corresponds with the way she sees herself and then with the way she would like to be.
The results show that participants in all three groups perceive their bodies as heavier than reality, but the dansers had more accurate perceptions of their body weight than anorexics and the control group participants. The dansers wished to be heavier than they were, whereas the controls and anorexics were satisfied with their weight. On the one hand, anorexics seem similar to controls concerning perceptive dimensions and ideals of body size assessment. On the other hand, the dansers seem more realistic than anorexics and controls concerning body size perception but they had an ideal body size that did not closely match their actual body size. Finally, the scores of the anorexic subjects are characterised by an absence of a correlation between perceptive distortions and ideals. But the dansers' scores are characterised by consistency in the perceptive distortion and ideal. These results will be discussed.