Insatisfacción corporal en los trastornos de la conducta alimentaria: un estudio comparativo

background: body dissatisfaction (bd) is considered as a predisposing, triggering, perpetuating and/or prognosis factor of eating disorders (ed). objective: to compare the presence of bd and psychopathological and/or behavioural features between female subjects with and without ed. method: comparatively the eatingattitudes test (eat-40), the eating disorder inventory (edi) and the body shape questionnaire (bsq) were administered to 52 ed female patients and to 51 female students without ed. results: patients reached significantly higher rates than female students without ed on bsq, eat-40, edi and subscales (p = < 0.001), except perfectionism (p = 0.015). bd assessed by edi (17 versus 4; p < 0.001) y el bsq (152 versus 58.5; p < 0.001) scored significantly higher in patients, mainly in anorexics on eat-40, bsq, bd, ineffectiveness and perfectionism (p < 0.001); bulimics on global edi, drive for thinness, interoceptive awareness, bulimia, maturity fears and interpersonal distrust (p < 0,001). the or of bd (edi) was 1.17 versus bsq (or = 1.05) (p < 0.001). the eat global score was directly and significantly correlated to bsq (r = 0.672; p < 0.001) in patients and to bd (edi) (r = 0.639; p < 0.001) in female students without ed. conclusions: bd is prevalent in an extreme degree within all the subtypes of ed. anorexics exhibited a higher bd as well as ineffectiveness and perfectionism. a higher bd is positively related to a higher ed symptomatology. the risk of developing an ed in a young woman that exhibits some degree of bd is very high.