ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the relationship between body image and embodiment as constructs that can inform research, treatment, and prevention of eating disorders. Phenomenologist Max van Manen makes an important epistemological case for the importance of embodiment when considering human experience. Body image and embodiment are constructs which both refer to the body, but in different capacities. Body image represents the cognitive attention on the appearance or image of the body, while embodiment refers to the lived body. One possible example of the difference between body image and embodiment is to compare it to the difference between looking at food and actually tasting and digesting it. Disembodiment is obvious during puberty as girls' bodies change, and the preoccupation with the appearance of the changing body becomes a central focus. Unlike body image, embodiment is the experience of the body as engaged in the world; it is a person's experience of living as a body.