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Distorting Patient or Distorting Instrument?

Body Shape Disturbance in Patients with Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

P. K. Bowden ,
S. W. Touyz ,
P. J. Rodriguez ,
R. Hensley  and
P. J. V. Beumont
P. K. Bowden*
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Psychology, Westmead Hospital
S. W. Touyz
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Psychology, Westmead Hospital
P. J. Rodriguez
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Psychology, the Prince Henry Hospital, Little Bay
R. Hensley
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology
P. J. V. Beumont
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
*
∗Westmead 2145, New South Wales, Australia
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Abstract

Three current techniques for estimating body size (Image Marking, Visual Size Estimation, and Distorting Video techniques) were compared. Anorexia nervosa and bulimic patients and normal control subjects were required to make size judgements of the way they ‘knew’ they looked, the way they ‘felt’ they looked, and of the width of an inanimate control object. Results from the three techniques were not the same, thus implying that research findings can no longer be cross-compared. Moreover, while all subjects were similar in the accuracy of their estimation of a control object, anorexia nervosa and bulimic patients overestimated their own body size significantly more than normal controls. This difference was even more marked when affective instructions were compared.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 155 , Issue 2 , August 1989 , pp. 196 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1989 

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