Flat 13 (Women have an inbuilt fear of being fat which is triggered when they see an overweight female stranger, but men have no such reflex, scientists say.)

Link Women have an inbuilt fear of being fat which is triggered when they see an overweight female stranger, but men have no such reflex, scientists say.

Dr Allen said when anorexic and bulimic women view an overweight stranger, the brain’s self-reflection centre known as the medial prefrontal cortex lights up in ways that suggest extreme unhappiness and in some cases, self-loathing.

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Surprisingly, even this control group exhibited what Dr Allen calls “sub-clinical” issues with body image.

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The results prompted Dr Allen to do the same tests on a healthy group of men but found they did not think about their own weight when looking at images of fat men.

Dr Allen said that the results showed that even confident, healthy women were much more likely to have eating disorders than men.

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“It’s like the plant in my office. It has the potential to grow in any direction, but actually only grows in the direction of the window the direction that receives the most reinforcement.”