New study says people can change the way they perceive their bodies in two minutes

If you’ve ever felt worse about yourself after looking at “perfect” bodies in the media, you’re not alone.

A new study has found that people’s perception of theirs and others’ bodies change within minutes after being exposed to thinner or fatter bodies than their own.

People who experience body dissatisfaction, believe they weigh more or less than they really do, which is thought to be a risk factor for eating disorders.

Published in Frontiers, the body image distortion study exposed participants to digitally manipulated bodies to appear thinner or larger than normal.

After two minutes, those who were exposed to thin bodies, thought the original body looked drastically fatter, while those who were exposed to heavier bodies found the normal bodies to be skinny.

The same can be said of people looking at thinner or fatter bodies than their own and perceiving themselves to be fatter or thinner as a result.

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The phenomenon is known as body size misperception and its more common than we think, having been dubbed “normative discontent.”

The researchers explain body size misperception is “reminiscent of a phenomenon known as visual adaptation that has been documented for hundreds or arguably thousands of years.”

“Adaptation involves prolonged exposure to an “adaptation” stimulus, causing an after-effect of distorted perception for similar “test” stimuli,” the study says.

Although early studies concentrated on simple stimuli, such as motion or colour, the investigation into changes in body size and shape can cause similar after-effects.

This study is just a step in the right direction of how to better understand these mechanisms and how best to manage severe forms of body size misperception such as anorexia nervosa.

So for the majority of us who never seem to be satisfied with our bodies in the mirror, rather than focusing on restricting our diets, it’s perhaps our visual diet that we should be changing.

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