This article was first published on new.com.au
A disorder in which sufferers fixate on body parts they believe are imperfect is leaving them too scared to leave the house.
They are also spending hours every day on social media comparing their pictures with other people.
The trend has prompted WA health authorities to issue a self-help guide to assist West Australians with the condition.
Five times more prevalent than anorexia nervosa, body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) causes people to believe they are ugly or disfigured for no reason.
Experts suggest that as many as one in seven cosmetic surgery patients could have the condition, but are either unaware or too ashamed to come forward.
The acting director of the WA Health Department’s Centre for Clinical Interventions, Anthea Fursland, said people with BDD were obsessed with the idea that a part of their body was flawed.
“It’s not about vanity. It’s not about wanting to look great,” Dr Fursland said.
“It’s about not wanting to look terrible. It’s a desperate search to look acceptable.”
Dr Fursland said the centre had published a guide that could be used for self-help or with a therapist to draw attention to this “hidden” disorder.
Victorian Counselling and Psychological Services clinical psychologist Dr Ben Buchanan has discovered a link between brain function and BDD.
“We found that the part of the brain associated with emotion and perception, which is called the amygdala, is hyperactive and is likely firing and making people fearful when there is no threat or nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “And also we found that the part of the brain that usually regulates or controls the amygdala isn’t connected very well to it.”
Dr Buchanan said the rising popularity of social media had made life harder for BDD sufferers.
“In BDD there is a lot of compulsive checking and traditionally that’s been checking in the mirror, but with social media it’s often checking other people’s Facebook photos, other people’s Instagram and comparing one’s own appearance with them,” he said.
“It’s not uncommon for people to end up in my office who spend three hours a day on Instagram comparing their own photos to other people, or the same with Facebook.”
Dr Buchanan said one in seven cosmetic surgery patients had BDD. He said plastic surgeons had a responsibility to ensure they were identified because surgery would only make their condition worse.
