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Body Size Estimation in Anorexia Nervosa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2018

Andrew M. Whitehouse ,
Christopher P. L. Freeman  and
Annette Annandale
Andrew M. Whitehouse*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge
Christopher P. L. Freeman
Affiliation:
Royal Edinburgh Hospital
Annette Annandale
Affiliation:
Royal Edinburgh Hospital
*
Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge CB2 2QQ
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Extract

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).

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 153 , Issue S2: The Psychopathology of Body Image , 1988 , pp. 23 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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