THE Food disorders They are characterized by complex and multifactorial etiology.
Experimental and perspective data suggest that cultural models affect the body image. That is, they make the alteration of food behavior more likely through two main processes. 1) The internalization of the ideal of thinness and 2) the investment on the body to evaluate oneself.
In our culture, the body and physical appearance represent a fundamental basis through which to evaluate themselves. The self -esteem depends directly on the achievement of certain ideals of beauty and shape of the body.
The unattainable ideal of thinness That the company promotes, however, often generates unusual body. This in turn promotes unhealthy dietary behaviors, such as the restriction of food intake.
Body dissatisfaction in eating disorders
Dissatisfaction with one’s body can encourage negative feelings such as anxiety, shame and sadness.
In research on the onset and maintenance of eating disorders, some factors such as:
- the dissatisfaction of the body
- the internalization of the ideal of thinness
- diet
- negative affectivity (anxiety, sadness and shame)
Recent longitudinal studies have investigated how the factor of theself-objectiveness may predict the onset and maintenance of eating disorders in female people.
But what is meant by self-objectiveness?
It is the tendency to experience one’s body from the perspective of an external observer. The self-objectiveness therefore describes a particular perspective on the bodily self. A form of self -awareness characterized by the usual monitoring of the body and its constant thought in terms of appearance (Riva et al., 2015).
In a longitudinal study of 2700 girls (Dakanalis et al., 2017) it emerged that self-objectiveness is the factor that most predicts theonset of eating disorders in girls. Its predictive power seems to be twice the body espatted and three times being on a diet.
These results are increasingly guiding research on prevention and on treatment of eating disorders.
Studies show a direct link between the symptoms of eating disorders and self-objectiveness, body monitoring and internalization of certain socio-cultural beauty standards.
But if all women are exposed to certain beauty models, why only a small part develops a food disorder?
Riva together with other researchers, tried to answer this question by connecting the car-objectification theory with The hypothesis of the allocentric block. Suggested that i eating disorders have an allocentric negative image of their body as antecedent. That is, that he cannot be updated by the self -centered sensory contribution of perception.
- The self -centered perspective is the one that allows us to see the objects in relation to ourselves: the position of an object changes when we move. This self -centered representation is mainly used in motor activity directed in space how to grasp or reach an object.
- In the allocentric perspective, on the contrary, the object is represented independently of our relationship with it. With reference to the body, the third -person perspective is in the mirror. It is interesting to note that even anxious subjects (for example those suffering from social anxiety) are more inclined to remember events in an allocentric perspective.
An example of an allocentric representation of the body is: “I look from the outside to my fat body in front of a person who makes fun of me“.
Studies on the allocentric perspective in eating disorders
Recent research on space memory has shown that these two perspectives (self -centered and allocentric) have an influence in the way the memories are stored and recovered.
Riva suggests that a woman can internalize an objectified self -image when she uses one allocentric perspective (Method of observer) to remember events in which it is evaluated on the basis of body appearance.
This alocentric self -self can have an important behavioral impact. The woman begins new behaviors to contrast the negative content of her objective body. One of these can be control or the food restriction which, however, does not appear to be effective to change the objective self.
To change the allocentric memory of fat body, The content must be transformed of a self -centered format. This is to compare it with perceptual data.
According to Byrne and other colleagues, the Papez circuit transforms allocentric content into a self -centered format. Thanks to this transformation new perceptual data (lean body) update the content of objectively personal memory (“now I’m thin “).
If this transformation is compromised, the subject is blocked on a negative self -self. The perception is unable to update itself even after a diet and a significant weight loss.
Allocentric block and eating disorder
The hypothesis of allocentric blocking He suggests that people with eating disorders are blocked in an objectively objective memory of the body (it is represented from outside, as in a mirror). This would no longer be updated by conflicting self -centered representations, guided by perception (I feel more fat than I am).
It seems therefore, there is an inability to correctly integrate self -centered and allocentric information.
Food disorders and virtual reality
Recent studies are aimed at evaluating how the virtual reality can be used for the treatment of eating disorders, specifically to correct this error of sensory integration.
For now, these are only preliminary studies or studies on individual cases. However, the results seem to show that The experience of a virtual bodychange the distortions in multisensory integration.
A very recent preliminary study on 23 people suffering from anorexia nervosa, highlights that only one session Of Body Swapping (experience of a new virtual body) is sufficient to produce a significant reduction in the level of body distortion (Serino et al., 2017).
Despite the encouraging results of the studies, theUse of virtual reality It is still far from being easily accessible in the clinic. This is due to the high costs of the helmets, viewers and software necessary for the sessions and the difficulty of using the necessary instrumentation.
