Pressure sensitivity in bulimic women: a contribution to research in body image distortion

The present study is a first step towards specifying perceptual peculiarities rather than visual ones that may contribute to a distorted body boundary experience in women meeting DSM III criteria for a diagnosis of bulimia. Fourteen bulimic women and 14 women without bulimia but closely matched in age, height and weight participated in the study. Pressure sensitivity was measured by means of the von Frey method under three conditions: (1) at the tip of the right index finger, (2) at the lower abdomen, (3) at the lower abdomen again, but with financial reward promised for high performance. Data confirmed the hypothesis that at both sites pressure sensitivity thresholds would be significantly higher for the bulimic group than for the comparison group. It is possible that deficits in pressure sensitivity are related to overestimation of the width of the respective body parts.