September 10, 2012 • 23 mins
How does body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) change the you see yourself in the mirror? Listen in to learn more about the relationship between gender and BDD, overcoming BDD and more in today's episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom Never told you?
From house stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're
(00:20):
talking about body dysmorphic disorder, which I feel like if
we had done this podcast even maybe five years ago,
the term would probably be alien to most people. But
it seems like this is becoming more more acknowledged a disorder,
(00:41):
mental disorder. And what specifically are we talking about when
we talk about body dysmorphic disorder. Basically, it's being it's
taking that body and security that pretty much everybody has,
that magnifying it. It's actually a chronic mental illness in
which you can't stop thinking about your parance, whether that
flaw is real or imagined. Yeah, and this is classified
(01:05):
as a somatiform disorder, which means that these symptoms suggests
a medical condition, but no specific medical condition can be
found by a physician. And it's also known as dysmorphophobia
or fear of having a deformity. And you might think like, oh,
(01:27):
body and security, okay, Well, I mean this must just
be a twenty one century problem. We're looking at too
many magazines. But actually that term the dys morphophobia, dates
back to eighteen eighty six, and it wasn't until that
the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders changed the
(01:47):
official term to body dysmorphic disorder, and there have been
cases charted for the past century and also around the world. Yeah,
what's interesting about this condition is that it resembles so
many other conditions, and in parts of it, it resembles
O c D because you have this obsessive worry about
a body part or you know, maybe your weight. Uh,
(02:10):
constant grooming, maybe you're picking at pimples on your face,
you're constantly fixing your hair. Also resembles eating disorders if
you're thinking that you're significantly overweight when you're not. It
also has aspects of social anxiety disorders because you end
up isolating yourself. You're thinking, oh, I'm so ugly because
of X y Z, so you don't even want to
go out in public. Yeah, and to to understand that
(02:32):
line between um A general insecurity and this actual disorder,
going back to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, they define
it as being extremely preoccupied with an imagine defect or
minor flaw in your appearance, and also being so preoccupied
with appearance that it causes you significant distress or problems
(02:55):
in your social work, school, or other areas of functioning.
I mean, there are literally people who will not leave
their homes because they believe it they're so hideous to
a delusional extent, which Harvard research has found that in
about half the cases of b d D, the concern
reaches these delusional proportions because there's that point in your
(03:15):
head where you know, say you you know, you don't
like your you have some acne and you feel like
it's it's like magnified in your brain, but you know
that it's just acne. But with these delusional cases of
b d D, it's just hideous and you are grotesque.
You're a monster. Yeah. And some of the things we read,
they they talked about it in reference to like intorexia,
(03:39):
for instance, where it's one thing if you think like,
well I could stand to lose a few pounds or whatever,
but you know, I know I'm generally okay. You know,
there's that view that you are honestly like hideous and deformed, right,
you end up being very underweight, and you look in
the mirror and you still see a large frame. Right. Well,
(04:00):
Katherine Phillips over at Harvard, who has done a lot
of research on b d D, says that many of
these people try to get cosmetic surgery to fix these
perceived flaws but end up never being satisfied. And I mean, like,
how many celebrities have we seen who you know may
or may not have this condition, but who just keep
going on and on with the plastic surgery. Yeah. Um,
(04:22):
and speaking of people, Uh, the their estimates that this
effects between three and six million Americans. That's coming from
b d D expert Dr Serry Shepherd, and then um
Katherine Phillips uh similarly says that it probably affects between
one and two percent of the American population, but that
(04:42):
number might actually be higher because a lot of these
a lot of times just this disorder is shrouded in
a lot of secrecy. Yeah, the rate, the estimated rate
in the general populations about two percent, but they think
that that is up to about fifteen percent of patients
in dermatology D and cosmetic surgery clinics because they're actually
(05:02):
seeking to fix whatever problem it is UM a random survey.
This was from April two eight and CNS spectrums, a
random survey found that the estimated prevalence of b d
D was about two point four percent, so right along
that same line, and it actually exceeds the prevalence of
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder type one. It's about equal to
(05:23):
that of generalized anxiety disorder. And a lot of times,
like you mentioned, UM, it will happen alongside something like
an eating disorder. For instance, among anorexia patients around thirty
will also be found to have b d D. It's
closely associated with O c D behaviors as well. The
O c D Center of Los Angeles UM conducted a
(05:44):
study and found that of b d D suffers also
had O c D UM and they also a lot
of times will exhibit an O c D cycle that
reinforces this negative behavior. In an attempt to combat it.
For instance, UH people with b d D might compulsively
check themselves in the mirrors to to feel okay, try
(06:06):
to diminish their anxiety about their appearances. But that compulsive
behavior of staring yourself in the mirror for extended amounts
of time actually reinforces the disorder. Um, But what about
some more specific symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder, Because I
think a lot of times, at least in my mind,
when I first heard about it, I assumed that it
(06:28):
was just a weight thing. Um. But actually, according to
the US Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress, sixty percent of
b D D stuffeners agonized over their noses. Sixty um
will stress out over acne and scarring marks on skincent
(06:52):
will agonize over the color of their skin, and a
lot of times, most commonly that the skin hair knows
and specific body parts that will will cause the distress. Yeah,
when I was in middle school, I have a very
pointy nose. For those of you out there, it is
a cute nose. But when I was in middle school,
(07:13):
I just hated it, hated it, hated. It was so
self conscious and if I if I liked a boy,
I wouldn't sit so that my profile was like directly
facing him. I would sort of try to sit kind
of diagonally or or head on because I was like,
oh God, don't look at me from the side. That's
the worst. That's the nose angle. No, Well, you do
(07:36):
have a very cute nose. Um. So what about the demographics,
because this was another surprise with this research. Um, I
think again there might be an assumption of oh, body
and security, especially for talking about the media influence. This
must be something that mostly happens to women, right, It's
(07:58):
actually pretty even. Yep. This effects men and women very
similarly different they're they're worried about different things, but the
same amount. Pretty much, are are pretty worried. This is
from the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease from September.
Women are more likely to be preoccupied with their hips
and weight, picked their skin and camouflage, flaws with makeup,
(08:21):
and have comormid coat morbid bulimia, whereas men are more
preoccupied with bodybuild, genitals and hair thinning. They tend to
use hats for camouflage. They actually tend to be unmarried
also and have alcohol abuse or dependence. Yeah, speaking of that,
the gender difference with hair, specifically, with men, they're scared
they have too little, with women they're scared that they
(08:44):
have too much. And um, sort of in support of
this gender equality, this is not the kind of equality
that we really advocate for, but in terms of the
parody with b D d UM. There was a two
thousand one study in the British Medical Journal that cided
research findings that the proportion of men dissatisfied what their
(09:06):
overall appearance has tripled in the past twenty five years,
and this is something that the media started paying more
attention to. UM. There have been there's been more research
into this, more insight and seeing how the cultural beauty
myth that has for a long time kept women very
insecure about their appearance and kind of you know, the
(09:28):
dictates of telling us what we should wear and how
we should look it is affecting men is so much
more as well these days exactly. Well, another study, this
is again Catherine Phillips, who she has done so much research,
this is from two thousand and six, supports that there
are a lot of similarities between men and women with
this condition. UM. Women, however, are we were more excessive
(09:54):
with the things that we are insecure about because if
you go down the list of things that Katherine Phillips
points out, you know, like there are a couple of
points with men, but then women it's like, yeah, we're
obsessed about everything from our skin literally down to our toes.
We also she found tend to have earlier onset of
the subclinical BDD symptoms, so things that we touched on earlier,
(10:17):
like anxiety or depression more so than men. Yeah, and um,
there's a subset of body dysmorphic disorder that tends to
affect men more commonly than women. And it's something called
muscle dysmorphia. And this is coming from Jennifer Waldron from
the University of North Iowa. She said it typically occurs
in boys and men who have a well defined muscular
(10:38):
build and it's a combination of biological, psychological, and social
factors and uh. In short, muscle dysmorphia is an obsession
over a muscular built where when you look in the mirror,
even if you've been pumping iron, you might even be
using steroids. There's a heightened risk of steroid use with
muscle dysmorphia. You still see a puny frame. Yeah. This
(11:01):
is and Red, which is an Xia nervosa and related
eating disorders, says that these people really do see themselves
as small and there could be something wrong with the
brain's ability to map actual physical boundaries, and so they
end up spending a lot of time just thinking I'm undersized.
If I skip a day of exercise, you know, I'm
gonna not be healthy or big or built anymore. So
(11:23):
they tend to start neglecting family and friends over exercise.
Even if they're sick, they don't take a day off.
They just want to keep getting bigger. Yeah, and it's
it's like the sort of the masculine version of the
cultural body standards that have been, uh, you know, dictated
toward women. You know, women are supposed to be, you know,
have the slight delicate in frames, whereas you know, men
(11:46):
are taught to be these like hairless, like triangular backed
muscle machines. Right. Well this uh. In the American Journal
of Men's Health from December two thousand seven, they point
out that gay men are actually more likely to experience
something a lot of body pressures along the same lines
that women are, and they are more likely to want
to be thin and pursue that thinness at a greater risk.
(12:09):
So they are more likely to have eating disorders as
opposed to the muscle dysmorphia. That more it's more affecting
straight men. Now you did mention though, Caroline, with the
the and red finding, they're saying that you know, there
could be something in terms of the muscle dysmorphia, There
could be something wrong with patient's brains abilities to map boundaries.
(12:30):
And as researchers are trying to figure out what is
going on with body dysmorphic disorder, they are looking to
see whether there are brain structural differences between the general
population and these b d D patients, and they think
that it might have something to do with the left
(12:52):
side of our brain that's more analytical and the right
side of our brain that is more um general. It's
the organizational versus the executive functioning in the brain, and
some research has suggested that when someone with bi dysmorphic
disorder looks in the mirror, that left analytical side of
the brain kicks into high gear and focuses in on
(13:15):
details and doesn't see the entire picture, whereas the in
the healthy population there's more of a brain balance between
the organizational and the executive seeing the details but also
seeing seeing the full picture as well. Yeah, that's interesting.
I I had never heard anything like that. And it
wasn't just with their own pictures, it was with pictures
of other people. So they just zeroed in on the negative.
(13:39):
The big pores the acne scars, whereas somebody else might
just look at you and be like, wow, that person
is really pretty. And there are also the psychological risk
factors that we should mention as well. UM. Childhood trauma
and abuse is something that's been linked strongly to its
self esteem issues is something that comes up a lot
with bullying. I think you mentioned bullying UM earlier. UH.
(14:01):
And they've also found that in terms of treatment that
s s r I selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors UM the
form of antidepressants have been helpful. So they wonder if
there's something too in the brain chemistry and how our
neurons communicate to each other that might UM interfere with
(14:21):
how they see and interpret their bodies in the mirror.
And we've touched on conditions that can kind of be
related to this, UH, depression, anxiety, they're definitely UH, suicidal
thoughts and behaviors. They get tied in with b d
D because you know, these people are so concerned about
(14:42):
something that other people might think is relatively minor, but
they end up blowing it up in their minds, and
so it can also get tied in with eating disorders,
social isolation, et cetera. In a December two thousand four
study in the American Journal of Psychiatry did find a
link to depression in women. In particular, they had a
sample of women ages thirty six to forty four and
(15:03):
found that the presence of b d D was significantly
associated with the presence of major depression and anxiety disorders. Yeah,
and Catherine Phillips and other b d D experts will
urge people who are exhibiting the symptoms of b d
D to see a doctor. If that shame and that
embarrassments that that psychological anxiety is weighing down on you,
(15:28):
they say, go see a doctor. You know, it might
be easy. One of the biggest myths about b d
D is that it's just uh, you know, overblown vanity
and it's just a symptom of our times and you know,
over media saturation. But they're saying no, actually, like this
is a very real disorder that does not get better
a lot of times on its own um and if untreated,
(15:50):
it could get worse over time, and like you said,
lead to suicidal thoughts and behavior, right, and it really
affects everything. It's not just like, oh my gosh, I
hate hair. UM. A Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
study from two thousand found that outpatients actually had a
worse quality of life overall. They found that physical health
(16:11):
related quality of life scores were generally worse than the
US population norms, although they were better than those for
outpatients with actual medical illness or depression. But they found
that in general, across all mental health domains, b d
D subject scores were worse than the norm and they
had more symptoms and greater delusionality. But on the upside,
(16:33):
there are treatments for it. I mean, there isn't a
pill that you can pop and it's going to magically
go away. A lot of times we mentioned the S
s R I antidepress instead have been helpful, especially if
you have the comorbid anxiety depression o c D issues
going on as well. UM and a lot of cognitive therapy.
It's a lot about changing how you process UM. You know,
(16:59):
your your your self esteem and how your your confidence,
how you feel about yourself. And obviously it's it's a
it's a combination of, Yes, these mental exercises and also
it seems like very real brain chemistry issues that should
be UM that could use adjustment as well. And in addition,
there are certain wellness behaviors that Dr Sarah Shepard, who
(17:23):
was one of the experts that we've referenced UM said
have been helpful, such as teaching patients just healthy eating practices.
Exercising yoga in particular has been found to be helpful
and positive. Socialization the thing that you, um you've mentioned
about like actually getting patients out there and sort of
(17:44):
reintroducing them into social situations and reinforcing that idea that hey,
you're not you are not a hideous monster. You are
you know, you are a person worthy of love. And
also that this is something worth treating, Like there's no
reason that you should have to live of with this
pain and pressure that you're putting on yourself. You know
that you just think that that you're terrible to look at,
(18:06):
or that your thighs are humongous, or your nose is
out of whack, like you you should go seek help
for this so that you can, you know, get back
to having a normal, happy life. And there are a
couple of resources I want to throw out there. UM.
The Broken Mirror by Dr Catherine Phillips is a book
that's often referenced. It's one of it was one of
the first big books on b d D. And then
(18:28):
online you can go to b d D Central dot
com as well to find more resources out there. So
I hope that this has been helpful and enlightening biasmorphic disorder.
It's not something to just brush aside. It's a very
real mental disorder. But there is help out there. So
(18:49):
that's all we've got. If you have any um stories
or questions about b d D, feel free to send
us an email. Mom Stuff at Discovery Comments where you
can send it, and you can always find us on
Facebook as well. And we have a couple of emails
to share in the meantime. Well. The first one I
(19:13):
have here is from Gin and this is in response
to our Summer Shorts episode on swimsuits. And she is
a student at North Carolina State University College of Textiles
pursuing a bs in Textile Technology with a concentration in
technical textiles. And she was really excited to hear this
podcast because we talked about Olympic swimsuits and it is
(19:38):
right up her alley. She writes, it doesn't surprise me
one bit the cost of the Olympic suits. In the
world of technical textiles, oftentimes every angle between individual fibers
is precisely engineered to serve a specific purpose. In addition
to the shape and chemical makeup of the fiber, the
way the yarn is twisted, the type of weaving or
knitting used, and the construction of the final product. This
(20:01):
year's suits focus primarily on shaping the body through the
use of compression to literally force the body into the
most hydrodynamic shape possible. An added bonus to this is
that compression increases muscle performance, which is a feature you
see in a lot of high performance sports apparel. The
suit is also extremely hydrophobic as to not pick up
extra weight which would slow down the swimmer, and this
(20:22):
feature is actually what got last Olympic suits banned. A
full body suit of completely hydrophobic fabric lifts the swimmer
up too high in the water, where the air provides
less drag. The suits also don't feature traditional sown seams,
which are bumpy and can create drags. Instead, the fabric
is ultrasonically seamed together, which involves using ultrasonic pulses to
(20:44):
melt the fibers together. I would assume there is a
minimal amount of steaming at all three D knitting technology.
What three D knit knitting technology allows us to knit
a complete garment straight out of the loom. Considering all
the research that went into these five hundred dollars for
a swimsuit, it seems like a steal. That is fascinating. Well, yeah, sure,
(21:04):
when you put it that way, the bargain ultrasonic pulses
to melt the fibrous together. Gin thank you so much
for that insight into Olympic swimware. Imagine what they could
do for pantylines they be gone. Here's an email from
Whitney that is actually kind of scary and funny all
(21:25):
at the same time. It's about baby fever. Right, this
is about baby fever, she says. Now, I'm no scientist
and have definitely not conducted any studies pertaining to the subject,
but based on personal experience, I will swear to anyone
that the baby fever is extremely contagious. I was working
in a small department consisting of myself, three other women,
and two men, all working together for eight hours a day,
(21:48):
five days a week. I was the first one of
our group to get pregnant, but it was not planned.
The best accident of my life, of course, but an
accident nonetheless. As we shared so much of our lives together,
my coworkers actively participated in my pregnancy and all the
crazy emotions that entailed. Nine months later, my beautiful girl,
Orianna Muse came into the world. About a month after that,
(22:09):
one female coworker ecstatically announced the upcoming arrival of one
of her own little bundles of joy, who happened to
be born exactly nine months after my daughter was born.
A few months after her announcement, another female coworker had
the same joyful news to announce to the group. Further,
the fourth and final female coworker declared her pregnancy soon
after that. Of course, our supervisor was putting quite the
(22:31):
predicament when two thirds of our department department required six
plus weeks of maternity leave. The craziest part of the
story is that all four of us had a little
baby girls. So she says that the moral of my
story is to stay away from pregnant ladies if you
don't want a baby anytime soon. The fever is contagious
and spreads rapidly. Feva baby fever, so thanks to everyone
(22:55):
who's written in Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot com again
is where you can send your letters, or you can
also find us on Facebook. Like us while you're at it,
follow us on Twitter one not at Mom's Stuff podcast,
and you can check out our new Tumbler blog. It's
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it at stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com.
(23:18):
And if you would like to learn more about bidysmorphic disorder,
you can read how Body dysmorphic Disorder works at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
(23:40):
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff Mom Never told you?
From house stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're
(00:20):
talking about body dysmorphic disorder, which I feel like if
we had done this podcast even maybe five years ago,
the term would probably be alien to most people. But
it seems like this is becoming more more acknowledged a disorder,
(00:41):
mental disorder. And what specifically are we talking about when
we talk about body dysmorphic disorder. Basically, it's being it's
taking that body and security that pretty much everybody has,
that magnifying it. It's actually a chronic mental illness in
which you can't stop thinking about your parance, whether that
flaw is real or imagined. Yeah, and this is classified
(01:05):
as a somatiform disorder, which means that these symptoms suggests
a medical condition, but no specific medical condition can be
found by a physician. And it's also known as dysmorphophobia
or fear of having a deformity. And you might think like, oh,
(01:27):
body and security, okay, Well, I mean this must just
be a twenty one century problem. We're looking at too
many magazines. But actually that term the dys morphophobia, dates
back to eighteen eighty six, and it wasn't until that
the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders changed the
(01:47):
official term to body dysmorphic disorder, and there have been
cases charted for the past century and also around the world. Yeah,
what's interesting about this condition is that it resembles so
many other conditions, and in parts of it, it resembles
O c D because you have this obsessive worry about
a body part or you know, maybe your weight. Uh,
(02:10):
constant grooming, maybe you're picking at pimples on your face,
you're constantly fixing your hair. Also resembles eating disorders if
you're thinking that you're significantly overweight when you're not. It
also has aspects of social anxiety disorders because you end
up isolating yourself. You're thinking, oh, I'm so ugly because
of X y Z, so you don't even want to
go out in public. Yeah, and to to understand that
(02:32):
line between um A general insecurity and this actual disorder,
going back to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, they define
it as being extremely preoccupied with an imagine defect or
minor flaw in your appearance, and also being so preoccupied
with appearance that it causes you significant distress or problems
(02:55):
in your social work, school, or other areas of functioning.
I mean, there are literally people who will not leave
their homes because they believe it they're so hideous to
a delusional extent, which Harvard research has found that in
about half the cases of b d D, the concern
reaches these delusional proportions because there's that point in your
(03:15):
head where you know, say you you know, you don't
like your you have some acne and you feel like
it's it's like magnified in your brain, but you know
that it's just acne. But with these delusional cases of
b d D, it's just hideous and you are grotesque.
You're a monster. Yeah. And some of the things we read,
they they talked about it in reference to like intorexia,
(03:39):
for instance, where it's one thing if you think like,
well I could stand to lose a few pounds or whatever,
but you know, I know I'm generally okay. You know,
there's that view that you are honestly like hideous and deformed, right,
you end up being very underweight, and you look in
the mirror and you still see a large frame. Right. Well,
(04:00):
Katherine Phillips over at Harvard, who has done a lot
of research on b d D, says that many of
these people try to get cosmetic surgery to fix these
perceived flaws but end up never being satisfied. And I mean, like,
how many celebrities have we seen who you know may
or may not have this condition, but who just keep
going on and on with the plastic surgery. Yeah. Um,
(04:22):
and speaking of people, Uh, the their estimates that this
effects between three and six million Americans. That's coming from
b d D expert Dr Serry Shepherd, and then um
Katherine Phillips uh similarly says that it probably affects between
one and two percent of the American population, but that
(04:42):
number might actually be higher because a lot of these
a lot of times just this disorder is shrouded in
a lot of secrecy. Yeah, the rate, the estimated rate
in the general populations about two percent, but they think
that that is up to about fifteen percent of patients
in dermatology D and cosmetic surgery clinics because they're actually
(05:02):
seeking to fix whatever problem it is UM a random survey.
This was from April two eight and CNS spectrums, a
random survey found that the estimated prevalence of b d
D was about two point four percent, so right along
that same line, and it actually exceeds the prevalence of
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder type one. It's about equal to
(05:23):
that of generalized anxiety disorder. And a lot of times,
like you mentioned, UM, it will happen alongside something like
an eating disorder. For instance, among anorexia patients around thirty
will also be found to have b d D. It's
closely associated with O c D behaviors as well. The
O c D Center of Los Angeles UM conducted a
(05:44):
study and found that of b d D suffers also
had O c D UM and they also a lot
of times will exhibit an O c D cycle that
reinforces this negative behavior. In an attempt to combat it.
For instance, UH people with b d D might compulsively
check themselves in the mirrors to to feel okay, try
(06:06):
to diminish their anxiety about their appearances. But that compulsive
behavior of staring yourself in the mirror for extended amounts
of time actually reinforces the disorder. Um, But what about
some more specific symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder, Because I
think a lot of times, at least in my mind,
when I first heard about it, I assumed that it
(06:28):
was just a weight thing. Um. But actually, according to
the US Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress, sixty percent of
b D D stuffeners agonized over their noses. Sixty um
will stress out over acne and scarring marks on skincent
(06:52):
will agonize over the color of their skin, and a
lot of times, most commonly that the skin hair knows
and specific body parts that will will cause the distress. Yeah,
when I was in middle school, I have a very
pointy nose. For those of you out there, it is
a cute nose. But when I was in middle school,
(07:13):
I just hated it, hated it, hated. It was so
self conscious and if I if I liked a boy,
I wouldn't sit so that my profile was like directly
facing him. I would sort of try to sit kind
of diagonally or or head on because I was like,
oh God, don't look at me from the side. That's
the worst. That's the nose angle. No, Well, you do
(07:36):
have a very cute nose. Um. So what about the demographics,
because this was another surprise with this research. Um, I
think again there might be an assumption of oh, body
and security, especially for talking about the media influence. This
must be something that mostly happens to women, right, It's
(07:58):
actually pretty even. Yep. This effects men and women very
similarly different they're they're worried about different things, but the
same amount. Pretty much, are are pretty worried. This is
from the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease from September.
Women are more likely to be preoccupied with their hips
and weight, picked their skin and camouflage, flaws with makeup,
(08:21):
and have comormid coat morbid bulimia, whereas men are more
preoccupied with bodybuild, genitals and hair thinning. They tend to
use hats for camouflage. They actually tend to be unmarried
also and have alcohol abuse or dependence. Yeah, speaking of that,
the gender difference with hair, specifically, with men, they're scared
they have too little, with women they're scared that they
(08:44):
have too much. And um, sort of in support of
this gender equality, this is not the kind of equality
that we really advocate for, but in terms of the
parody with b D d UM. There was a two
thousand one study in the British Medical Journal that cided
research findings that the proportion of men dissatisfied what their
(09:06):
overall appearance has tripled in the past twenty five years,
and this is something that the media started paying more
attention to. UM. There have been there's been more research
into this, more insight and seeing how the cultural beauty
myth that has for a long time kept women very
insecure about their appearance and kind of you know, the
(09:28):
dictates of telling us what we should wear and how
we should look it is affecting men is so much
more as well these days exactly. Well, another study, this
is again Catherine Phillips, who she has done so much research,
this is from two thousand and six, supports that there
are a lot of similarities between men and women with
this condition. UM. Women, however, are we were more excessive
(09:54):
with the things that we are insecure about because if
you go down the list of things that Katherine Phillips
points out, you know, like there are a couple of
points with men, but then women it's like, yeah, we're
obsessed about everything from our skin literally down to our toes.
We also she found tend to have earlier onset of
the subclinical BDD symptoms, so things that we touched on earlier,
(10:17):
like anxiety or depression more so than men. Yeah, and um,
there's a subset of body dysmorphic disorder that tends to
affect men more commonly than women. And it's something called
muscle dysmorphia. And this is coming from Jennifer Waldron from
the University of North Iowa. She said it typically occurs
in boys and men who have a well defined muscular
(10:38):
build and it's a combination of biological, psychological, and social
factors and uh. In short, muscle dysmorphia is an obsession
over a muscular built where when you look in the mirror,
even if you've been pumping iron, you might even be
using steroids. There's a heightened risk of steroid use with
muscle dysmorphia. You still see a puny frame. Yeah. This
(11:01):
is and Red, which is an Xia nervosa and related
eating disorders, says that these people really do see themselves
as small and there could be something wrong with the
brain's ability to map actual physical boundaries, and so they
end up spending a lot of time just thinking I'm undersized.
If I skip a day of exercise, you know, I'm
gonna not be healthy or big or built anymore. So
(11:23):
they tend to start neglecting family and friends over exercise.
Even if they're sick, they don't take a day off.
They just want to keep getting bigger. Yeah, and it's
it's like the sort of the masculine version of the
cultural body standards that have been, uh, you know, dictated
toward women. You know, women are supposed to be, you know,
have the slight delicate in frames, whereas you know, men
(11:46):
are taught to be these like hairless, like triangular backed
muscle machines. Right. Well this uh. In the American Journal
of Men's Health from December two thousand seven, they point
out that gay men are actually more likely to experience
something a lot of body pressures along the same lines
that women are, and they are more likely to want
to be thin and pursue that thinness at a greater risk.
(12:09):
So they are more likely to have eating disorders as
opposed to the muscle dysmorphia. That more it's more affecting
straight men. Now you did mention though, Caroline, with the
the and red finding, they're saying that you know, there
could be something in terms of the muscle dysmorphia, There
could be something wrong with patient's brains abilities to map boundaries.
(12:30):
And as researchers are trying to figure out what is
going on with body dysmorphic disorder, they are looking to
see whether there are brain structural differences between the general
population and these b d D patients, and they think
that it might have something to do with the left
(12:52):
side of our brain that's more analytical and the right
side of our brain that is more um general. It's
the organizational versus the executive functioning in the brain, and
some research has suggested that when someone with bi dysmorphic
disorder looks in the mirror, that left analytical side of
the brain kicks into high gear and focuses in on
(13:15):
details and doesn't see the entire picture, whereas the in
the healthy population there's more of a brain balance between
the organizational and the executive seeing the details but also
seeing seeing the full picture as well. Yeah, that's interesting.
I I had never heard anything like that. And it
wasn't just with their own pictures, it was with pictures
of other people. So they just zeroed in on the negative.
(13:39):
The big pores the acne scars, whereas somebody else might
just look at you and be like, wow, that person
is really pretty. And there are also the psychological risk
factors that we should mention as well. UM. Childhood trauma
and abuse is something that's been linked strongly to its
self esteem issues is something that comes up a lot
with bullying. I think you mentioned bullying UM earlier. UH.
(14:01):
And they've also found that in terms of treatment that
s s r I selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors UM the
form of antidepressants have been helpful. So they wonder if
there's something too in the brain chemistry and how our
neurons communicate to each other that might UM interfere with
(14:21):
how they see and interpret their bodies in the mirror.
And we've touched on conditions that can kind of be
related to this, UH, depression, anxiety, they're definitely UH, suicidal
thoughts and behaviors. They get tied in with b d
D because you know, these people are so concerned about
(14:42):
something that other people might think is relatively minor, but
they end up blowing it up in their minds, and
so it can also get tied in with eating disorders,
social isolation, et cetera. In a December two thousand four
study in the American Journal of Psychiatry did find a
link to depression in women. In particular, they had a
sample of women ages thirty six to forty four and
(15:03):
found that the presence of b d D was significantly
associated with the presence of major depression and anxiety disorders. Yeah,
and Catherine Phillips and other b d D experts will
urge people who are exhibiting the symptoms of b d
D to see a doctor. If that shame and that
embarrassments that that psychological anxiety is weighing down on you,
(15:28):
they say, go see a doctor. You know, it might
be easy. One of the biggest myths about b d
D is that it's just uh, you know, overblown vanity
and it's just a symptom of our times and you know,
over media saturation. But they're saying no, actually, like this
is a very real disorder that does not get better
a lot of times on its own um and if untreated,
(15:50):
it could get worse over time, and like you said,
lead to suicidal thoughts and behavior, right, and it really
affects everything. It's not just like, oh my gosh, I
hate hair. UM. A Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
study from two thousand found that outpatients actually had a
worse quality of life overall. They found that physical health
(16:11):
related quality of life scores were generally worse than the
US population norms, although they were better than those for
outpatients with actual medical illness or depression. But they found
that in general, across all mental health domains, b d
D subject scores were worse than the norm and they
had more symptoms and greater delusionality. But on the upside,
(16:33):
there are treatments for it. I mean, there isn't a
pill that you can pop and it's going to magically
go away. A lot of times we mentioned the S
s R I antidepress instead have been helpful, especially if
you have the comorbid anxiety depression o c D issues
going on as well. UM and a lot of cognitive therapy.
It's a lot about changing how you process UM. You know,
(16:59):
your your your self esteem and how your your confidence,
how you feel about yourself. And obviously it's it's a
it's a combination of, Yes, these mental exercises and also
it seems like very real brain chemistry issues that should
be UM that could use adjustment as well. And in addition,
there are certain wellness behaviors that Dr Sarah Shepard, who
(17:23):
was one of the experts that we've referenced UM said
have been helpful, such as teaching patients just healthy eating practices.
Exercising yoga in particular has been found to be helpful
and positive. Socialization the thing that you, um you've mentioned
about like actually getting patients out there and sort of
(17:44):
reintroducing them into social situations and reinforcing that idea that hey,
you're not you are not a hideous monster. You are
you know, you are a person worthy of love. And
also that this is something worth treating, Like there's no
reason that you should have to live of with this
pain and pressure that you're putting on yourself. You know
that you just think that that you're terrible to look at,
(18:06):
or that your thighs are humongous, or your nose is
out of whack, like you you should go seek help
for this so that you can, you know, get back
to having a normal, happy life. And there are a
couple of resources I want to throw out there. UM.
The Broken Mirror by Dr Catherine Phillips is a book
that's often referenced. It's one of it was one of
the first big books on b d D. And then
(18:28):
online you can go to b d D Central dot
com as well to find more resources out there. So
I hope that this has been helpful and enlightening biasmorphic disorder.
It's not something to just brush aside. It's a very
real mental disorder. But there is help out there. So
(18:49):
that's all we've got. If you have any um stories
or questions about b d D, feel free to send
us an email. Mom Stuff at Discovery Comments where you
can send it, and you can always find us on
Facebook as well. And we have a couple of emails
to share in the meantime. Well. The first one I
(19:13):
have here is from Gin and this is in response
to our Summer Shorts episode on swimsuits. And she is
a student at North Carolina State University College of Textiles
pursuing a bs in Textile Technology with a concentration in
technical textiles. And she was really excited to hear this
podcast because we talked about Olympic swimsuits and it is
(19:38):
right up her alley. She writes, it doesn't surprise me
one bit the cost of the Olympic suits. In the
world of technical textiles, oftentimes every angle between individual fibers
is precisely engineered to serve a specific purpose. In addition
to the shape and chemical makeup of the fiber, the
way the yarn is twisted, the type of weaving or
knitting used, and the construction of the final product. This
(20:01):
year's suits focus primarily on shaping the body through the
use of compression to literally force the body into the
most hydrodynamic shape possible. An added bonus to this is
that compression increases muscle performance, which is a feature you
see in a lot of high performance sports apparel. The
suit is also extremely hydrophobic as to not pick up
extra weight which would slow down the swimmer, and this
(20:22):
feature is actually what got last Olympic suits banned. A
full body suit of completely hydrophobic fabric lifts the swimmer
up too high in the water, where the air provides
less drag. The suits also don't feature traditional sown seams,
which are bumpy and can create drags. Instead, the fabric
is ultrasonically seamed together, which involves using ultrasonic pulses to
(20:44):
melt the fibers together. I would assume there is a
minimal amount of steaming at all three D knitting technology.
What three D knit knitting technology allows us to knit
a complete garment straight out of the loom. Considering all
the research that went into these five hundred dollars for
a swimsuit, it seems like a steal. That is fascinating. Well, yeah, sure,
(21:04):
when you put it that way, the bargain ultrasonic pulses
to melt the fibrous together. Gin thank you so much
for that insight into Olympic swimware. Imagine what they could
do for pantylines they be gone. Here's an email from
Whitney that is actually kind of scary and funny all
(21:25):
at the same time. It's about baby fever. Right, this
is about baby fever, she says. Now, I'm no scientist
and have definitely not conducted any studies pertaining to the subject,
but based on personal experience, I will swear to anyone
that the baby fever is extremely contagious. I was working
in a small department consisting of myself, three other women,
and two men, all working together for eight hours a day,
(21:48):
five days a week. I was the first one of
our group to get pregnant, but it was not planned.
The best accident of my life, of course, but an
accident nonetheless. As we shared so much of our lives together,
my coworkers actively participated in my pregnancy and all the
crazy emotions that entailed. Nine months later, my beautiful girl,
Orianna Muse came into the world. About a month after that,
(22:09):
one female coworker ecstatically announced the upcoming arrival of one
of her own little bundles of joy, who happened to
be born exactly nine months after my daughter was born.
A few months after her announcement, another female coworker had
the same joyful news to announce to the group. Further,
the fourth and final female coworker declared her pregnancy soon
after that. Of course, our supervisor was putting quite the
(22:31):
predicament when two thirds of our department department required six
plus weeks of maternity leave. The craziest part of the
story is that all four of us had a little
baby girls. So she says that the moral of my
story is to stay away from pregnant ladies if you
don't want a baby anytime soon. The fever is contagious
and spreads rapidly. Feva baby fever, so thanks to everyone
(22:55):
who's written in Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot com again
is where you can send your letters, or you can
also find us on Facebook. Like us while you're at it,
follow us on Twitter one not at Mom's Stuff podcast,
and you can check out our new Tumbler blog. It's
fantastic and fun and we just delight. You can find
it at stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com.
(23:18):
And if you would like to learn more about bidysmorphic disorder,
you can read how Body dysmorphic Disorder works at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot com
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
(23:40):
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