> Thea House, the study’s lead author and a PhD student at the University of Bristol and Macquarie University, explains: “Body dissatisfaction is a risk factor for eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and purging disorder. It is also a key diagnostic symptom of anorexia nervosa. Women experiencing body dissatisfaction may be worsening it by spending more time looking at thinner body sizes.

>“Our findings have implications for the prevention and treatment of eating disorders and suggest that interventions such as attention training tasks, which have been used to improve symptoms of anxiety, could be adapted to treat symptoms of eating disorders by shifting attention away from thin body sizes. These types of task can be completed on a home computer, so they have potential to be a practical and cost-effective treatment option for people with these disorders.”