Distorted body image in normal college women: possible implications for the development of anorexia nervosa.

College women (N = 100) who averaged about 18 years of age were asked to rate the size of their bodies after looking in a mirror, and these ratings were compared to their actual body sizes. Women whose personality characteristics more closely resembled those proposed as basic to anorexic development in Slade's model were more inclined to overestimate body size, but only if they were relatively thin. A motivational role for body-image overestimation was suggested wherein this distortion serves to maintain dieting behavior even when a thin body is attained.