The role of sensory and nonsensory factors in body size estimations of eating disorder subjects

Body size distortion of anorectic and bulimic subjects was compared to controls via a video-distortion technique. Subjects judged the whole body, chest, hips and stomach regions. A adaptive probit estimation (APE) methodology examined separately the sensory and nonsensory components of body image distortion. Eating disorder subjects overestimated body size more than control subjects. There were no significant differences between eating disorder groups, although there was more variability in eating disorder subjects. Subjects overestimated more on whole body as compared to body regions. There were no differences in sensory sensitivity to detecting size differences between groups. Results indicate that differences in body size distortion between eating disorder and control subjects are due exclusively to affective, nonsensory factors.