What size and shape am I?

Abstract

Background Body image disturbance is conceptualised as arising from the interaction between perceptual and attitudinal components, yet the psychological complexity embedded within the attitudinal domain remains underexplored. This study tested an integrated model of perceptual, attitudinal, and interoceptive influences on women’s judgments of their own body size. Methods In a sample of 269 adult women, behavioural measures of body size estimation were combined with network analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and regression modelling to distinguish psychological processes exerting direct versus indirect effects on self-estimated body size. Results Three central findings emerged. First, contraction bias in perceptual body size estimation was robustly replicated, with lower-BMI individuals overestimating and higher-BMI individuals underestimating their body size. Second, attitudinal body image concerns independently shifted self-estimated body size upward across the BMI range, acting additively rather than interactively with contraction bias. Third, the network and factor analyses demonstrated that attitudinal body image comprised four interconnected domains: Body Image, Mood, Interoceptive Sensibility, and Sociocultural Pressure. We found important connections between Body Image and Interoceptive Sensibility facilitated by Mood acting as a bridging intermediary. However, the regression analysis showed that only Body Image, not Interoceptive Sensibility, Sociocultural Pressure, or Mood, exerted direct effects on self-estimates of body size. Conclusion Attitudinal body image is multidimensional in structure, but only the Body Image domain directly influences behavioural judgments of body size; interoceptive sensibility and other attitudinal factors operate indirectly within the broader body image system. The two-component perceptual–attitudinal model remains a powerful framework for explaining body size judgments, while network methods clarify how the contributing psychological processes are organised.