Suicide risk high with body image obsession

[The Straight Story]

Suicide risk high with body image obsession


Reuters Health

Wednesday, August 2, 2006

By Anne Harding

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with "body dysmorphic disorder" are 45 times more likely to commit suicide than people in the general population, a new study shows.

The findings underscore the importance of recognizing and treating this "often secretive" psychiatric disorder, Dr. Katherine A. Phillips, the study's co-author, told Reuters Health.

Individuals with body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD, have a distorted body image and think obsessively about their appearance, often for hours a day, explained Phillips, who is at Butler Hospital and Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island.

The disorder frequently leads to self-loathing and social isolation, she added. It is not uncommon for people with BDD to tell no one about their condition, even a spouse or very close friends.

"I've worked with these patients for about 15 years now," Phillips added. "In my clinical experience they're often thinking about suicide. They're an unusually distressed group of people."

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_36836.html

[SmokingJacket]

1. That's interesting.

I've always thought of anorexia as a kind of slow-motion suicide.

[sgxnk]

2. fwiw

most women and men have SOME dysmorphia

iow, they have a distorted view of their bodies.

several studies have proven this (it's been about 15 yrs since i reviewed them) but to put it in brief...

men, on average, tend to think they are thinner AND more muscular than they actually are. this is verifiable via silhouette studies

you take a silhouette picture of a man's physique.

then, you show the man a series of silhuouetted physiques and ask him to pick the one closest to his. on average, men choose physiques that have narrower waists and broader shoulders than their own

iow, men tend to think that they are better looking than they are

women, otoh, on average, have the opposite response. tending to choose silhouettes that are heavier than their actual silhouettes prove to be

interestingly, men and women learn from an early age to "see" subjectively in the mirror. iow, they learn to filter what they see in the mirror through their self-perception which allows this distortion to be upheld - realizing of course that while the eyes are objective, our brain's "reading' of these images is subjective

but they do not have these same subjective filters placed over their photographed or filmed image

so, when photographs are viewed they often are suprised at how different they look than they perceive via their mirror image

but clearly, the article is right in terms of more SEVERE cases of dysmorphia

iow, i posit that most people have mild dysmorphia, but more severe dysmorphia is another thing entirely

[The Straight Story]

3. Interesting

I would look like Homer Simpson in a silhuouette...