But what could cause such a severely wrong picture of themselves? People who suffer from this generally speaking also suffer from things such as severe depression and anxiety, which all three of things are caused by a chemical in the brain either releasing too much or not enough of itself.
But many other things can play into how someone feels about themselves, such as how they were treated growing up by family and peers. Research done by the American Physiological Association shows that "the smaller a subjects waist size the greater the over-estimation." (Penner, 1). In this research project they took three groups of women, some that had been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, those that were "normal" sized, and those that were heavier and they let them estimated how big their bodies were by using a photograph of themselves and lights that they could cast in different directions. They found that the "normal" sized and heaver set women were pretty close when it came to estimating their actual size but those that suffer from anorexia nervosa enlarged themselves by a considerable amount. Based on this study and another one conducted by Kim Crow stating "It seems that women who used to be a size 8 or 10 and gained weight often don't simply want to shop a size 14 or 16." (crow, 2). Making us realize how much more prominent the symptoms of this illness can be, making the statistics of anorexia being 12% higher as a death rate among young women a very startling discovery. But another concern is that eating disorders seem to be the new norm for girls to turn too when they aren't happy with their body, that they are willing to permanently damage themselves to feel better for a day or so until they are disappointed again. When will they reach their dream size? Or will the breaking point come first? Because what is more accepted in this society, being skinny or being mentally ill?.