Yes, we feel satisfied with some of the goodness or positive aspects associated to us, but we still keep on concentrating on the blues. In fact, we may be following a wrong path with or without our consciousness, but we may keep on repenting on what we have done without ever trying to eliminate the very cause of this effect. Binge eating is a habit which most of us cannot give up so easily and in turn, we may develop a secondary habit- looking or examining our body parts which have become "ugly" on account of such over eating.
A recent study conducted in Germany has suggested that binge eaters as well as non-binge eaters appear to be more concerned about their ugly body parts. The researchers further stated that the binge eaters are more likely to look at their ugly body parts with a greater frequency in comparison to the overweight, non binge eaters.
Binge eaters express greater degree of body dissatisfaction in comparison to the overweight, non-binge eaters and this led study authors to conclude that binge eating is marked by increased visual attention to the most unattractive body parts. And yes, this finding proved to be true in case of women.
The study considered 26 binge eaters and 18 overweight non- binge eaters. The participants of the control group were required to have a BMI of over 25. The BMI was found to be higher in the binge eaters in comparison to the non-binge eaters.
The subjects were informed that they were going to watch photographic representations of themselves and of a control person at the time of measurement of their pupil size. The pictures were organized in two blocks and each block featured 4 body perspectives (right, left, front and back) of the self-picture and 4 body perspectives of a control picture of an individual, who had a matching BMI.
Each perspective was displayed twice on the computer screen for 8 seconds and then the participants were asked to spot the ugliest and the most beautiful body part in the self/ control picture. A 240-Hz Eye-Link Eyetracker equipped with View software was used to measure their eye movements.
After an analysis, researchers found that the binge eaters as well as the overweight, non-binge eaters had a high tendency to observe their ugly body parts. In fact, this behavior was portrayed to a greater degree by the binge eaters. And this effect was observed more in the self-pictures in comparison to the control photos.
But this study has not been able to suggest whether higher body dissatisfaction of obese individuals increase this biasness or if this bias is actually responsible for high levels of dissatisfaction among the binge eaters.
