In this country a staggering number of women suffer from a disease dubbed Body Dysmorphic Disorder (B.D.D), a mental disorder causing women to have a heightened awareness of her perceived body image.

In most cases, women who suffer from this disorder look in the mirror and have an abnormal image of their body. For example, a girl who may be extremely skinny will think she weighs more than she does, or a woman might see her upper torso as abnormally wide when in fact they aren’t.

According to the NYTimes, researcher Dr. Jamie D. Feusner who works at the David Geffen School of Medicine, has deemed that people who suffer from B.D.D have brain activity that appears drastically different from the average person,

“The differences showed up in areas involved in visual processing. The more severe the symptoms, the more the person’s brain activity on imaging scans differed, on average, from normal levels, the researchers reported in the February issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry.”

Unfortunately, symptoms like these lead to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.

In some rare cases, women also suffer from the opposite of body dysmorphic disorder.So women who are big actually think they are smaller than they are. Someone with the opposite of Body Dysmorphic Disorder could potentially be obese and avoid living a healthier lifestyle.

Do you know anyone who suffers from Body Dsymorphic Disorder?