Body image

Body image is a person’s perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about their own body. It can differ from the body’s observable features and change across situations and time.

Body schema: A largely unconscious representation of the body used to guide posture and movement. Unlike body image, it primarily guides action rather than conscious evaluation.
Visual perception: The processes by which the brain organizes and interprets information from vision. Visual judgments about body size and shape are part of body perception.
Body dysmorphic disorder: A mental disorder involving persistent preoccupation with perceived appearance flaws that are slight or not observable to others. Its defining preoccupation concerns perceived bodily appearance and distress.
Eating disorder: A mental disorder characterized by persistent disturbances in eating behavior or related thoughts and emotions. Body-image concerns can contribute to risk, though eating disorders have multiple causes.
Body mass index: A ratio of weight to height squared used as a screening measure in population health. A numerical weight-to-height measure does not describe a person’s body image.
Body dissatisfaction: Negative thoughts or feelings about one’s body or aspects of its appearance. It is one evaluative dimension of body image, not the whole construct.
Body ownership: The feeling that a body or body part belongs to oneself. A sense of bodily ownership helps anchor experience of the body as one’s own.
Anorexia nervosa: An eating disorder involving restricted energy intake, significantly low body weight, and disturbed experiences of weight or shape. Disturbed body experience can be part of its clinical presentation.
Depression: A mental health condition marked by persistent low mood or loss of interest, alongside other symptoms. Body dissatisfaction is associated with depressive symptoms, without proving a single direction of cause.
Body dysphoria: Distress related to a mismatch between a person’s experienced gender and sex characteristics. It concerns gender incongruence and is distinct from general dissatisfaction with appearance.

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