scholarly journals The link between anxiety and assessment of body attitudes and body size estimation in anorexia nervosa

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 204380872199763
Author(s):  
Birgit Hasenack ◽  
Lot Sternheim ◽  
Jojanneke Bijsterbosch ◽  
Anouk Keizer

Although body size estimation (BSE) tasks are frequently used to investigate distorted body representation in anorexia nervosa (AN), the link between anxiety and task performance has been overlooked. To investigate this, 30 female healthy controls (HCs) and 29 female AN patients completed two body attitude questionnaires and three BSE tasks (the Visual Estimation Task, the Tactile Estimation Task and the Hoop Task). Participants completed two body attitude questionnaires and three BSE tasks; the Visual Estimation Task, the Tactile Estimation Task, and the Hoop Task. The STAI-6 was administered before and after each body-related task to assess state anxiety. Results showed that state anxiety levels increased significantly more in AN patients than in HC after completing each task. Thus, performance of AN patients on BSE and other body-related tasks might not just indicate the (mis)perception of their body but also co-occur with increased state anxiety. This has implications for the interpretation of these tasks and for furthering our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie distorted body image in AN.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 1330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scarpina ◽  
Serino ◽  
Keizer ◽  
Chirico ◽  
Scacchi ◽  
...  

Background. The effective illusory ownership over an artificial body in modulating body representations in healthy and eating disorders population has been repeatedly reported in recent literature. In this study, we extended this research in the field of obesity: specifically, we investigated whether ownership over a virtual body with a skinny abdomen might be successfully experienced by participants affected by obesity. Methods. Fifteen participants with obesity and fifteen healthy-weight participants took part at this study in which the VR-Full-Body Illusion was adopted. The strength of illusion was investigated through the traditional Embodiment Questionnaire, while changes in bodily experience were measured through a body size estimation task. Results. Participants with obesity as well as healthy-weight participants reported to experience the illusion. About the body size estimation task, both groups reported changes only in the estimation of the abdomen’s circumference after the experimental condition, in absence of any another difference. Discussion. Participants with obesity reported to experience the illusion over a skinny avatar, but the modulation of the bodily experience seems controversial. Future lines of research exploiting this technique for modulating body representations in obesity, specifically in terms of potential therapeutic use, were discussed.


1995 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Molinari

The aim was to explore the body-image perception of a group of 20 hospitalised anorexic patients, aged 18 to 21 years, undergoing a period of treatment. The instrument used was the Askevold nonverbal perception test as modified by Allamani and colleagues in 1978 to assess perception of the dimensions of different parts of the body by exploiting the capacity to project them into space. The four parts were the head, the thoracic area, the abdominal area, and the pelvic area. Analysis of responses indicated that anorexic patients overestimated the abdominal and the pelvic areas much more than the 20 members of the control group (50% vs 30%). The areas of the head and thorax were perceived almost in their real dimensions by the anorexic patients but were underestimated by the control group.


2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dewi Guardia ◽  
Gilles Lafargue ◽  
Pierre Thomas ◽  
Vincent Dodin ◽  
Olivier Cottencin ◽  
...  

1986 ◽  
Vol 149 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Proctor ◽  
Stephen Morley

We asked 24 patients with anorexia nervosa and 30 normal controls to estimate their body-size several times, each time using different instructions. The degree of over-estimation was found to vary predictably with the wording of the instructions. Informing the subject that she had made an error without specifying the direction of the error resulted in reduced over-estimation on a subsequent trial, for both anorexics and controls. ‘Internally directed’ instructions were associated with a greater degree of over-estimation than ‘external’ instructions in both groups, but particularly in anorexic subjects. Our results indicate the necessity of controlling the ‘demand characteristics' of such experiments.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Katri K. Cornelissen ◽  
Kristofor McCarty ◽  
Piers L. Cornelissen ◽  
Martin J. Tovée

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 21-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Claire Mölbert ◽  
Lukas Klein ◽  
Anne Thaler ◽  
Betty J. Mohler ◽  
Chiara Brozzo ◽  
...  

1988 ◽  
Vol 153 (S2) ◽  
pp. 23-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Whitehouse ◽  
Christopher P. L. Freeman ◽  
Annette Annandale

Clinicians who deal with patients with anorexia nervosa are well acquainted with their patients' inability to recognise their emaciation. The patients' insistence that they are normal weight or even overweight, against clear evidence to the contrary, led Bruch (1962) to state that the misperception reaches “delusional proportions”. Studies of body size perception in anorexia nervosa that have used the ‘body part’ method have invariably found that the patients overestimate their body size (Slade & Russell, 1973; Crisp & Kalucy, 1974; Pierloot & Houben, 1978; Garner et al, 1976; Button et al, 1977; Fries, 1977; Casper et al, 1979) but the majority have not found any significant difference in size estimation between patients and controls (Slade, 1985).


1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monique A. M. Smeets ◽  
Filip Smit ◽  
Geert E. M. Panhuysen ◽  
J. David Ingleby

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