Thanks for the replies guys :-)

I guess I'm still trying to understand. I know the body image stuff is part of it... I mean the body image stuff in the sense of the way that people represent their body. That people with anorexia often represent their body as fat despite the outline of their bones showing through their skin and despite their BMI index and despite the scales...

Is it that people focus on the areas that aren't like that? I mean it is probably different for different people... But there always will be some fat attached to upper arms and thighs and stomach so even if the bones around your eyes are showing you can still think you are fat because your stomach or upper arms are slightly squishy?

There is more to it than misrepresenting ones own body image, huh.

I mean... If that was all their was to it then presumably a person with anorexia would see another person with anorexia and think that they were radically underweight. The problem would just be with their own body image.

But looking at other people who are radically underweight and seeing it as something to aspire to... Something more must be going on. I've heard that before, actually. I saw a movie about a person with anorexia when I was a teenager. It started for this person with her making a scrapbook of people where she aspired to be the same weight as them and over time... She was cutting out photos of the thinnest people she could find... So I guess it is body image more generally... Not just that one is misrepresenting ones own body...

Is it about... Restricting eating being taken as a symbol for self control? So that not eating is taken to be the ultimate symbol for self control?

> Do you think the scales are lying? * Yes *

All of them?

Or is it just that you disagree with the reccomended body weights etc?