Body image and eating disorders

• April 30, 2024

The problems related to body image such as dissatisfaction and distortion are preventable in childhood and adolescence. In the School of Psychology (FP) of the UNAM Prevention programs for different age groups have been developed, tested and evaluated using different methods and strategies such as the use of virtual reality and cognitive behavioral laboratories, among other procedures.

Today the importance of body image is such that in the case of problems related to eating disorders, some researchers suggest focusing first on the problems of this. Thus, positive health responses to treatment are promoted and facilitated.

The doctor Gilda Gómez Pérez Mitré, professor of the FP , commented that everything related to eating disorders appears first in highly industrialized countries and among the upper classes, and with globalization goes to developing countries.

He added that cross-cultural studies, Mexico-Spain and Mexico-Germany have shown that Mexican women - in both cases - have greater problems with body image than their female counterparts. In contrast, in the male comparison conducted in the two studies no significant differences were found.

Therefore, some risk factors in the field of eating disorders are associated with the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of body image; This can lead to situations such as anorexia or bulimia that occur in Mexican adolescents, in order to obtain a thin ideal figure.

Finally, the university researcher commented that the most serious consequences of non-prevention and non-treatment of an eating disorder are: the progressive loss of quality of life, the comorbidity or emergence of other chronic degenerative diseases and finally mortality, which can reach up to 18 percent.