“Increased levels of body dissatisfaction and a disturbed body image are serious problems associated with obesity (Adami et al., 1998; Friedman & Brownell, 1995).” Today, society pressures many girls to look exactly how other girls are portrayed by magazines, music, videos and television. This leads many girls to believe that the way their body shape and face looks is not good enough which is a disturbed body image symptom. When these girls develop a disturbed body image, this also leads to other issues surrounding their nutrition, such as eating disorders, which is used as a coping mechanism. The study conducted by Leignbuer, and others, will explore the effects that BED, binge eating disorder, has on the body image, size perception and behavioral aspects of fifteen obese girls versus fifteen females who do not have an eating disorder. The researchers of this study predicted that for the participants with the presence of a BED will have higher body dissatisfaction, a greater distortion in the perception of their own body, and stronger body-related avoidance behaviors. From this prediction, you can see that there is a preconceived idea about obese girls who suffer from a BED, differing from girls who are obese with no BED. Girls who suffer from obesity are most often aware of their condition, although they make no efforts to change their body image. Girls who suffer from obesity, in addition to BED, often feel guilty about their body image and will go to any length in order to improve their body to how they think it should look. When someone suffers from BED, or binge eating disorder, they often eat an unusual large amount of food and feel out of control during the binges. They do not throw up their food or exercise a lot as people do who suffer from bulimia or anorexia. They often “eat until they are uncomfortably full, eat when they are not hungry, when they aren’t hungry, eat alone because of embarrassment, and fell disgusted, depressed or guilty after overeating.” From this information, perhaps it can be concluded that the females who suffer from BED only became obese after their continued eating habits. Had it not been for their BED, they would have never felt the way they did about their bodies. Their disorder clearly suggests that they have an issue with the way they look and the only way they know how to cope with the pain is to eat their problems away. Females who suffer from BED need to learn how to cope with their own body image issues and find a healthy outlet in order to improve their self-esteem. Just because an individual is obese, or severely overweight, does not mean that they should have low self-esteem or that they will have issues with their body image. Even though many females are pressured by the media to look a certain way and be a certain size, this does not mean that all females fall victim to the media. Many females are able to be comfortable within their own skin, regardless of their size. Being obese does not mean that you aren’t less significant than anyone else nor does it mean that you should feel guilty about the way you look. When someone suffers from obesity, they can be comfortable with their own body image – even if they do want to change how they look. The underlying difference between obesity and obesity and BED is that with obesity, the girls are not desperate and willing to do anything to change how they look. They understand that they must be healthier and exercise and the change will be gradual, it is a change they are willing to make – rather than feeling like they are forced by society to change. They do not badger themselves for the way they look; instead they accept it and do what is necessary to change. To test their hypothesis, the researchers performed a series of tests on the participants including a questionnaire, in which they rated their own body satisfaction, drive to be thinner, and body dissatisfaction; and a photo distortion test, in which they were shown an adjusted photo of themselves to see how they felt about their own body image. The questionnaire asked the participants questions regarding restraint, eating concern, shape concern and weight concern, which were rated on a 7-point scale. The photo distortion method used a photo of participants in leggings and a tight fitting shirt that was distorted to 80% width and 120% width. The goal was to get to the correct, original width of 100%. If the participants formatted the picture <100% then they were identified as having a slimmer distortion and >100% was identified larger body distortion. Both methods proved that participants who had a BED had a lower self-esteem (from the questionnaire) and had a distorted body image (photo distortion method). The researchers’ prediction was proved to be correct.
Source: Legenbauer, Vocks, Betz, Benecke, Troje, Ruddel, Puigcerver. "Aspects of Body Image
Eating Disorder: An Exploratory Study Including Static and Dynamic Female Obese Individuals With Versus Without a Comorbid Binge Differences in the Nature of Body Image Disturbances Between". Behavior Modification. 35. 162. 2011
http://bmo.sagepub.com/content/35/2/162.full.pdf+html
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