What You Should Know About Body Dysmorphia, Megan Fox's Disorder | News channel 3-12 (2023)

Door Kristen Rogers, CNN

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Actress Megan Fox, a cover star of the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, who has longconsidered a sex symbol, telsaid she's in itO5 million to 10 millionpeople in the United States affected by body dysmorphia.

“I never see myself the way other people see me. There's never been a point in my life where I loved my body, ever," Fox said in a video.interview with Sports Illustrated. "When I was little it was an obsession I had, like, 'But I'm supposed to look like this.' And why I was so aware of my body at such a young age I'm not sure."

A discrepancy between how someone perceives themselves and how others see them is a hallmark symptom of body dysmorphia. Also known as body dysmorphic disorder, it is "characterized by excessive preoccupation with an imagined defect in physical appearance or markedly excessive preoccupation with a slight physical abnormality," according to theAmerican Psychological Association.

What people actually look like - or how attractive they are - often has little to do with it.

"If that person had a very visible scar or some other physically noticeable deformity, then we're not talking about that," says Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist and author based inCalifornia.

“The individual becomes preoccupied, almost obsessive, with a small physical feature. It could be a little blemish, a little bump on the nose, a slightly misaligned tooth, the shape of something, but it wouldn't be noticeable to other people," he added. "It's never good enough. … And it is basically going to take over their lives.

Around2% of the world's populationhave body dysmorphia, and the condition affects men and women almost equally, according to theAnxiety and Depression Association of America. Symptoms usually begin to appearin adolescence, when bodies begin to change dramatically.

There is a sub-form of body dysmorphia:muscle dysmorphia,which mainly affects men, is characterized by a preoccupation with the perception that the body is not slim or muscular enough - often regardless of how muscular a person is.

See what it's like to live with body dysmorphia and how people can find help.

What body dysmorphia is not

Body dysmorphia is often confused with an eating disorder, but it's not because of a few differences, according to Durvasula and Ann Kearney-Cooke, a Cincinnati psychologist who specializes in eating and body image disorders.

People with eating disorders worry about a disruption in how they perceive their shape or weight, Durvasula said. "The person engages in behaviors (disordered eating) and also what we call compensatory behaviors, which can be things like not eating for periods of time, hyper-exercising, using diuretics or laxatives, things like that."

However, body dysmorphia usually revolves around an imaginary or real trait, experts say.

What causes body dysmorphia

There is no single cause of body dysmorphia, but there are some contributing factors.

"Body dysmorphia is in the same family of disorders as obsessive-compulsive disorder," Durvasula said. "The only genetic evidence we see is that if a person has a first-degree relative (parent or sibling) with OCD, they are more likely to develop body dysmorphia."

Researchers have suggested that the brains of some people with body dysmorphia may "show abnormalities in processing visual information when it comes to examining their own faces," according toa 2010 study.

Body dysmorphia sometimes co-occurs with anxiety. If someone is worried about certain things because of anxiety, a body feature might be another issue to focus on, Durvasula added.

“Social media certainly didn't help with that. There's a lot more social comparison to what other people look like. A lot of people post fake photos," Durvasula said. "By adolescence, that form of assessment — looks, fit, and all that — will be much more pronounced."

Having family members who evaluate, validate or love themselves or others based on appearance may also play a role, she added.

"It makes people overly sensitive to [noticing] flaws in their appearance," Kearney-Cooke added. “And what often happens is that somewhere deep down, whether it's because of a troubled childhood or whatever, they feel like, 'I'm not enough. I'm not attractive. And then they project that into their body.

A perfectionist mindset reinforces this view, she added.

Living with body dysmorphia

The effects of body dysmorphia can extend to all aspects of life - social, occupational and financial - especially if the condition worsens over time without treatment.

"Because they are so obsessed with these kinds of feelings that this physical problem exists, they spend a significant amount of time and money on cosmetic medical treatments or cosmetic dental treatments, dermatological treatments and even surgical treatments," Durvasula said.

People with body dysmorphia also exhibit "check-in" behaviors, where they seem to spend a lot of time looking in the mirror and taking countless selfies and evaluating them, Durvasula added.

Looking in the mirror compulsively may alleviate people's anxiety about their appearance or help them see if a perceived flaw is still there or has worsened, the study said.National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Related Disorders. They think the feature is abnormal or ugly. Body dysmorphia was originally described as "the syndrome of imagined ugliness," Kearney-Cooke said.

Someone with the disorder may also seek reassurance from others, asking if they see the mistake, if a feature looks right, or if there is something wrong or different about the feature.

People with body dysmorphia may self-isolate out of shame or spend too much time worrying about their appearance, experts say. They may also deplete their social support by constantly seeking safety, Durvasula added.

Spending so much time analyzing your appearance can lead to you being late for work or failing your schoolwork, she said. Some people are taking a financial risk by buying cosmetic products or procedures – going into debt for themselves or their families, and sometimes secretly because they're worried about what might happen if people found out.

Kearney-Cooke had a patient so obsessed with a perceived flaw in her nose that she always looked in the mirror, even while driving, the psychologist said. Crashing the car into a tree in the process was a wake-up call for the patient, she noted, leading to treatment and eventually some improvement.

Getting treatment for body dysmorphia

Body dysmorphia has no cure and is a "difficult clinical condition" to treat because "it's a very resistant pattern to change," Durvasula said. But some effective treatments are available.

A preference of many experts is cognitive behavioral therapy. A person's distortions or thoughts are believed to drive these behaviors, so therapists work on the person's distortions and go from there, Durvasula said. Because body dysmorphia falls into the same category as obsessive-compulsive disorder, treatments for OCD such as "exposure and response prevention" can also be helpful in managing body dysmorphia. In a safe environment,this therapy exposespeople to situations that provoke their obsessions or triggers and compel them to choose not to respond with compulsive behaviors.

When undergoing this treatment, a person with body dysmorphia may not be able to look in the mirror or take selfies much, Durvasula said. “They really need to accept the discomfort of the non-controlling behavior. But this needs to be complemented by cognitive-behavioral work.”

A history of trauma also requires trauma-informed therapy, which requires a mental health professional to recognize how the person's trauma may be the cause of the body dysmorphia.

"Some therapies can also be very educational — about the images we see in the world and how unrealistic they are," Durvasula said.

Researchers have been investigating brain chemicals such as serotonin, which is also a cause of body dysmorphia, Kearney-Cooke said — so antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, may also be helpful in treatment.

If you can't find a mental health professional who specializes in body dysmorphia, try working with someone who has experience with OCD or eating disorders, Durvasula said.

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