ABSTRACT
Body image has been defined as “an evaluation of body size, weight or other aspect of the body that determines physical appearance” (Thompson, 1990). It embraces the separate perception of these determinants in a visuo-spatial sense, and satisfaction of the perception. As a determinant of self-esteem, body image includes perceptual, affective and cognitive components which rely in part on the construction of a dual model, which represents oneself and others. The complex interaction of these components relies in part on ‘objective anthropometry’ (Kay, 1996), – in other words, a reliable measurement of the phenotype, against which other influences such as environment, experience, gender and personality are brought to bear. The representations of self and others are counterpoised, and a comparison ‘set point’ is the theoretical fulcrum of the combined influences, which determine the response (Kay, 1996).
