Does Body Checking Regulate Emotions? An Experimental Study on Appearance- and Health-Related Body Checking

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Body checking (BC) is prevalent in healthy individuals and those with eating disorders (EDs), body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), and illness anxiety disorder (IAD).
• Etiological models suggest BC provides short-term negative affect reduction, drawing from obsessive-compulsive disorder research.
• Empirical evidence on negative affect reduction from BC is inconsistent, necessitating further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To experimentally test the etiological models of BC in healthy females.
• To investigate the short-term effects of ED-, BDD-, and IAD-related BC on negative affect and disorder-specific pathology.
• To compare the effects of specific BC tasks with a control checking condition.

Main Methods:

• A cross-over laboratory experiment was conducted with 102 healthy females.
• Participants underwent a 10-minute BC task (ED-, BDD-, or IAD-related) or a control task (checking vase characteristics).
• Negative affect and disorder-specific pathology were assessed before and after each task.

Main Results:

• BC tasks led to increased negative affect and disorder-specific pathology.
• The control checking condition resulted in a reduction of negative affect and pathology.
• These findings contradict the hypothesis of short-term negative affect reduction from BC.

Conclusions:

• The theory of negative affect reduction through compulsive checking may not apply to BC in healthy populations.
• BC appears dysfunctional in the short term for individuals without diagnosed disorders.
• This study provides evidence against the proposed etiological models for BC in healthy individuals.