Distorted body representation in adolescent girls with anorexia nervosa

Background

A core symptom of anorexia nervosa (AN) is a distorted body representation. AN often has an onset in puberty. Therefore, it is pivotal to gain a better understanding of these distortions in adolescents with AN. This study aimed to capture the multidimensional perspective of body representation and investigate to what extent adolescent girls with AN differ from adolescent girls without AN on five domains of body representation, namely bodily cognitions and attitudes, body checking and body avoidant behaviors, visual perception, tactile perception, and affordance perception.

Methods

Thirty-one adolescent girls with AN and 33 without AN (aged 14–18 years) were included in this study. Body representation was measured using questionnaires (Body Attitude Test, Body Appreciation Scale-2, and Body Checking and Avoidant Questionnaire) and experimental tasks (visual, tactile, and affordance estimation tasks).

Results

Findings demonstrated a difference on all domains of body representation; adolescent girls with AN self-reported to experience more negative cognitions and attitudes toward their bodies, self-reported to engage in more body checking and body avoidant behaviors, and showed higher percentages of visual, tactile, and affordance overestimation compared to adolescent girls without AN.

Conclusions

Adolescent girls with AN appear to have a more severely distorted body representation when compared to adolescent girls without AN, and may benefit from intensifying body-oriented interventions.