| Abstract: | This study extends earlier research on body image disturbance in anorexia nervosa to the reactions of patients with bulimia nervosa. “Natural” procedures were employed, and normal comparison groups as well as those with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa used adjective scales to rate “the self,” mirror images of themselves that were veridical, exaggerated for fatness or for thinness and adjusted to their ideal, and a television image they had adjusted to show how they feel and then how they think their body is. The different adjustments and ratings that were made in each condition question the validity of any single estimates of body size. Nevertheless, this multimethod approach to the cognitive and affective components of body image shows that those with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa consistently emphasize their feelings of fatness. |
