Body Dysmorphic

Body Dysmorphic Disorder


Northeastern University sophomore Terri* spends at least a few minutes a day critiquing her body in the mirror.

“I have this extra fat on my stomach that I hate,” she said, squeezing her abdomen with both hands.

Terri is an articulate, responsible, political science major and sociology minor who looks and sounds mature beyond her years. She is well-respected by peers and authority figures alike, and she recently landed a co-op job at a prestigious law firm in Boston. This girl has got herself together.

Today, wearing a business-casual purple turtleneck, gray peacoat and glasses, this confident, capable woman points to the area under her chin.

“I’ve just noticed this,” she said, running her fingers under her jaw, across a section of her neck that she believes is dangerously bordering on a double-chin.

Like most people, she sees nothing unusual about her physical concerns.

“Everyone worries about aspects of their appearance,” she said as she turns her attention away from the mirror and finishes getting dressed.

Many people have concerns with the way they look, but some have obsessive, irrational concerns. Like most people, Terri has never heard of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Although Terri’s body concerns may not constitute the disorder, there are people among us living with the secretive, shameful reality of BDD.

WHAT IS BDD?

Few people have ever heard of BDD, but virtually everyone has exhibited the characteristics of the disorder in its most basic form: a heightened concern with a particular part of their body that they deem “less than perfect,” something that they would like to improve upon and even something that they try to hide.

Unlike normal appearance concerns, however, BDD is marked by an intense preoccupation with an imagined defect in appearance. A severe and debilitating psychiatric disorder, BDD is characterized by an obsessive fixation on one or more parts of the body that a person perceives as...