Editorial: Body Dysmorphic Disorder in Children and Adolescents: Time to Act

In this issue of the Journal, Krebs et al.¹ report on the prevalence of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) in young people at the population level, addressing several important gaps in the literature. Previous attempts to estimate the prevalence of BDD in young people primarily relied on samples of students or twins, potentially lacking representativeness, and used self-administered instruments for estimation. While these studies employed validated cutoffs, ensuring reasonable sensitivity and specificity, they were unable to fully exclude alternative explanations for symptoms, such as concerns regarding body weight. Krebs et al.¹ break new ground by estimating the prevalence of diagnosed BDD in a large general population-based sample, employing a validated diagnostic instrument.