Research suggests that for people with BDD, there’s a big discrepancy between how they think they actually look and (1) how they ideally would like to look and (2) how they think they should look. They tend to underestimate their own attractiveness and overestimate the attractiveness of other people, which may further increase this discrepancy. The more perfectionistic a person is, the bigger this “self-ideal” discrepancy may be, which might in turn fuel even more dissatisfaction with one’s looks.
