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From: training@rtech.UUCP (Training account)
Newsgroups: net.social
Subject: Re: Anorexia & errors in self perception...
Message-ID: <488@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Jun-85 11:09:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.488
Posted: Thu Jun 13 11:09:20 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Jun-85 04:14:10 EDT
References: <147@unc.UUCP> <rocheste.9484> <158@unc.UUCP>
Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
Lines: 36

> > An extreme case of this sort of thing is Anorexia Nervosa, where
> > the focus on this internal self-concept is so strong that even what
> > a mirror shows is questioned.

> which brought to mind my life-long experience with mirrors.  As someone
> who has had absolutely no success in the no control of my weight (since
> turning 20, I've weighed as low as 110 and as high as 240), I've had
> the opportunity to see myself in the mirror as pleasantly slender and
> substantially obese.  *But that isn't what I've seen.*  It isn't a
> matter of questioning the mirror -- when I was 110 and looked in the
> mirror, I saw a *fat* person. (When I now look at photographs taken of
> myself during that period, I see a slender person...) Now, when I look in
> the mirror, I see a slightly overweight person, but when I look at current
> photographs, I see a blimp.  So --- am I an isolated crazy person,
> or do most people hallucinate when they look in a mirror?

You're probably not hallucinating (although you might be): mirrors and
photographs can distort your appearance severely.  Suppose that the plane
of your body is not exactly parallel to the plane of the mirror--suppose
that the top of the mirror is just a little closer to you than the bottom
of the mirror.  This will make you look shorter, but the mind tends to 
interpret the image as the correct height, but fatter (another way of 
thinking about it: having the top of the mirror closer to your body
squishes your image downward, which makes you look chunkier).  
Similarly, if the top of the mirror is further away from your body
than the bottom of the mirror, you'll look taller and thinner.

Cameras are notorious for distorting appearances; the degree and type
of the distortion is related to the size of the lens.  So-called "normal"
lenses (50mm lenses, which are the type that come with most cameras)
tend to make people look heavier than they are.  That's why models
are usually slimmer than the rest of us: when their picture is taken,
it makes them look heavier.  

Robert Orenstein
Relational Technology