Responses to the Visual Perception of Food in Eating Disorders

Preoccupation with food and dieting are typical manifestations of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Food intake is mainly determined by the presumed nutritive value resulting in a rejection of food that is assumed to be highly nutritious.’.2 It is also well established that the duration of consumption is changed in eating dis~rders.”~ Some of these alterations have also been described in fasting volunteer^.^ At present it is unknown whether these abnormalities merely represent biological correlates of malnutrition or specific psychopathological characteristics in eating disorders. The few psychological studies available assessed the responses toward food mostly by questionnaires, and in vivo studies using behavior observation techniques are rare due to methodological obstacles. Moreover, differences in bulimics and anorexics had not always been scrutinized. Visual presentation of 19 food items on slides was used in order to investigate the cognitive and emotional responses in 20 normal-weight bulimic and nine restrictive anorexic patients (DSM-IIIR), aged 19 to 25 years, at the beginning and at the end of hospital treatment. The control group consisted of nine age-matched women at the maximum of weight loss (100.8 f 4.8% IBW) during a four-week diet and at normal weight (106.6 f 5.3% IBW). It was examined whether the degree of rejection, the ratings of nutritive value, and hypothetical duration of consumption of food, categorized according to its nutritive value and ease of consumption, is different in these groups and whether the severity of the eating disorder, that is, the state of malnutrition, is related to these variables. Additionally, the influence of the perception of food items on ratings of appetite directly before and after the experiment was investigated in the groups.