Are You Thinking Yourself Fat?

Sounds impossible? A condition known as Body Dysmorphic Disorder or BDD does in fact exist, and according to an article published in the Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment journal, this syndrome is categorized by an “excessive preoccupation because of a presumed or minimal physical flaw in appearance that polarizes the energies of the subject.”

Authors of the article, Patrizia Fiori, a neurologist at the University of Napels and Luigi Maria Giannetti, a director of Infantile Neuropsychiatry Civil Hospital of Ariano, aimed to examine both positive and negative psychopathological aspects of BDD to analyze its relation with affection and insight.

They found that subjects were more susceptible to judgments about their body. Previous studies showed a link with a personality and affection of body image, in which manifestations vary between two extremes.