Body Misperception - The Influence of Imagery

You may have heard the saying that you are the product of your environment. The Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), used in education, psychology and communication is based on the idea that learning can be directly related to social interactions, experiences and outside media influence. Body size misperception is where people believe their bodies to be larger or smaller than they actually are, and research on this issue has mainly been based on SCT.

The term ‘environment’ is so broad and can include many things, so I believe our personalities and the way we process circumstances need to also be considered. Body misperception is closely related to many eating disorders, such as Anorexia Nervosa and Muscle Dysmorphia. Eating disorders are serious mental health issues, with anxiety and low self–esteem being major risk factors. As a personal example, I lived in the same family environment as my sister and brothers and yet they did not develop an eating disorder as I did.

Body Misperception

This article will consider the effect of what we are exposed to and how that may influence the continuing of body image disturbance. I believe this influences our idea of what is ‘healthy’ in terms of diet and exercise behaviour. If we have a misperception in one area of our life, then this will create misperceptions in other areas. The fitness industry may be one of the areas where there are many misperceptions, especially if the focus is on the image of the body and not on the HEALTH of the person.

Most studies on body misperception have focused on body size and not taken into account body composition. Research by Sturman et al., 2017, considered that exposure to different bodies and sizes may be influenced by perceptual adaptation effect. What this basically means is that extended exposure to a particular image will cause a visual after -effect (a bias). An example of this is when thin vertical stripes are viewed for 30 seconds, this causes a set of broader stripes to look broader than they actually are and vice versa.

Independent Aftereffects of Fat and Muscle

Observers in Sturman’s study were randomly assigned to either low fat, high fat, low muscle or high muscle adaptation conditions and were presented with a practice identity stimulus (body prototype). Using a virtual body manipulation tool, they had to manipulate the body image until it represented ‘average size’. They repeated this with 10 test identities and a baseline point of subjective normality (PSN) was calculated for body fat and for muscle mass. The observers were then each exposed to 10 adaptation stimuli, 6 times for 2 seconds each (120s of adaptation time). The adaptation stimulus images that the observers were exposed to, were up to 100% above and below their PSN for body fat and muscle mass.

The results showed that after prolonged viewing of large and small bodies, the observers showed aftereffects in the adaptation direction, and their perceived ‘normal’ is more like what they have been exposed to as opposed to what they presented prior to the adaptation phase. The study also supported that different neural mechanisms encode dimensions of body fat and muscle mass. 

Exposure to bodies with either high or low body fat levels caused a change in the perception of average body fat and the same with high or low muscle mass.

Implications of this Research

Individuals who are normal weight or underweight may perceive themselves to be overweight if regularly exposed to low body fat images. For someone that has risk factors predisposing them to an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia, this poses a problem if they are exposed to images where they perceive their body to be bigger than what they are looking at. A person with anorexia misperceives their level of body fat but do not misperceive their muscle mass, feeling they are fatter than what they actually are.

Extreme dieting, purging and excessive exercise become unhealthy habits.

The existence of ‘pro-ana’ websites reflects these findings. The images of extremely underweight individuals believing they are fat and encourage others in their pursuit of lowering their body weight is a major concern.

Similarly, regular exposure to highly muscular bodies may cause some individuals to believe they are less muscular than what they actually are as well. This is the case for those who have muscle dysmorphia, who misperceive their muscle size but do not misperceive their level of body fat. Excessive exercise and/or use of anabolic steroids and other substances may be used in order to try and achieve their perceived ‘ideal’ level of muscle.

Many people who suffer this have lost relationships, jobs and health as the compulsive need to train for hours at the expense of normal life activities take over. New Zealand bodybuilder, Justin Rys, died at 38 years of age resulting from the many physical complications in pursuit of an ever larger muscle mass. 

Similarly, once again, overweight people who interact with others of similar weight, underestimate their body fat. They tend to not believe they need to change their diet or lifestyle habits. Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and some cancers are risks of these choices.

If we choose to focus on body shape alone, then it appears that complications arise.

If our focus is on total health, that is physical, mental, emotional and social health, then maybe we would have fewer problems with body image as our focus would be more holistic and have greater balance, which means we may be less likely to ‘misperceive’ what our fitness and health is actually about.