Ricerc@Sapienza

Body dissatisfaction in individuals with Gender Incongruence (GI) represents a primary source of su↵ering. Several studies have highlighted how this su↵ering has psychological, physical, and biological implications. This work aims to explore experiences related to body dissatisfaction and investigate the issues associated with living in a body perceived as incongruent for individuals with GI. Thirty-six individuals, aged between 18 and 30 years old and at stage T0 of hormone treatment, participated in the study.

We combined virtual reality and multisensory bodily illusion with the aim to characterize and reduce the perceptual (body overestimation) and the cognitive-emotional (body dissatisfaction) components of body image distortion (BID) in anorexia nervosa (AN). For each participant (20 anorexics, 20 healthy controls) we built personalized avatars that reproduced their own body size, shape, and verisimilar increases and losses of their original weight. Body overestimation and dissatisfaction were measured by asking participants to choose the avatar that best resembled their real and ideal body.

Binge Eating Disorder (BED) ischaracterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating accompanied by a sense of lack of control over eating and associated with unpleasant feelings and marked distress (DSM-5, APA, 2013). BED is frequently associated to obesity (de Zwaan, 2001). Binge eating symptoms or behaviors (i.e. the experience of binge eating episodes without fulfilling BED criteria) are more common than the full syndrome (Siqueira ET AL., 2004; Spitzer et al., 1992).