Every Body Can be Beautiful

It's not unusual to be unhappy with a large nose or muffin-top. People who binge eat, however, tend to focus more on appearance and are significantly more dissatisfied with their looks.

In a recent study, researchers found that all participants had a bias toward ugly body parts, but women who are binge eaters were even more fixated on those areas.

Focus on beauty rather than faults.

By measuring eye movement, investigators from the department of psychology and psychotherapy at the University of Freiburg in Germany discovered that body dissatisfaction was exceptionally high in women who are considered binge eaters.

This study included 26 female binge eaters and 18 overweight, non-binge eating women. They were asked to look at a picture of themself next to photo of a control from four different points of view.

Researchers measured the amount of time participants looked at each picture and analyzed their eye movements.

Binge-eating participants focused on what they believed are ugly body parts of their own photos more often and for longer compared to the non-binge eating group.

This study suggests an association between weight and binge eating. More research is needed to determine the role weight plays in eating disorders, according to the investigators.

The research is published in the Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.