Body image: a preliminary study of the administration of the Body Uneasiness Test (BUT) to investigate specific features of eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and obesity - Immagine corporea: studio preliminare dell’applicazione del Body Uneasiness Test (BUT) per la ricerca delle specificità in disturbi del comportamento alimentare, ansia, depressione, obesità

Summary Objectives The aim of the study was to detect any significant difference between perceived Body Image in patients with Obesity, Anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorders, and a control group, as well to identify the typical features of perceived Body Image in all abovementioned disorders. Methods The study was performed at the Mental Health Department and at psychiatric facilities of the San Gerardo Hospital, Monza, Italy. The sample comprised 282 subjects divided into two groups, a study group consisting of 130 patients with any of the above disorders and a control group of 152 students attending the Milano Bicocca School of Medicine and their relatives. The study group comprised patients divided into four subgroups: Anxious Disorder, Depressive Disorder, Eating Disorder and Obesity. The study was based on a self-rated questionnaire, the Body Uneasiness Test (Cuzzolaro and Vetrone, 1999) part a, which is used to assess Body Image disorder. We used correlation and linear regression to investigate relationships among variables; t-test and analysis of variance ANOVA, to compare means and groups. Results We found a reduction of Compulsive Self Monitoring with age in both the control and all patient groups. Body Image disorder did not correlate with educational level in any of the groups (Table I). The frequency of Body Image Disorder is higher in women (Table II). Body Image disorder is different between the control group and the groups with obesity, anxiety and eating disorder; the control and the study groups showed a different disorder level in every subscale. The control group and the group of patients with depression showed similar distributions on the BUT. Evaluating the specific features of Body Image Disorder in different patient groups we found that it is higher in eating disorder patients. Pathological Body Image Disorder was found in 86% of patients with an Eating Disorder, 45% of patients with anxiety, 40% of patients with obesity, 20% of patients with depression and in 15% of controls (Table III). In patients with an Eating Disorder, the disorder is higher in all BUT subscales, except Compulsive Self monitoring (Table V). It is interesting that Eating Disorders differed from anxiety only for quantitative measures, i.e., patients in the former group showed a greater unease about their Body Image than patients in the latter group. Patients with Obesity scored intermediate between the above two groups. Moreover, we found that the distribution of pathological BUT scores is the same in all Eating disorder subtypes (Anorexia, Bulimia and Bing Eating Disorder). In patients with Obesity, Body Image disorder increase parallels the increase in Body Mass Index (Table VI). Conclusions According to our results, Body Image Disorder is found not only in patients with Eating Disorders, where it is much high and frequent, but also in anxiety disorders. In Anxiety and Eating disorders, but not in depression, Body Image has constant and uniform features; it can be considered as an organizer in a dimensional vision of patients, not described by the categorical predetermined diagnosis, but on the basis of each patient’s psychopathological features.