Ghost Fat: Altered Female Body Perception After Bariatric Surgery

Abstract

Body perception is an individual’s ability to recognize their body in attitudinal and/or dimensional aspects. We investigated women’s body perceptions before and after bariatric surgery. Participants were 31 women ( M age = 36.23, SD = 7.95 years old) with an average pre-operative body mass index of 44.58 ( SD = 4.65) kg/m2. We collected anthropometric and body perception measures (attitudinal body image [ABI] and dimensional body image [DBI]) before bariatric surgery and 30, 60, 90, and 120 days after it. There was an average decrease of 21.09% in participants’ body weight over the 120 days. Regarding ABI, 51.61% of participants had high body dissatisfaction before surgery, and this proportion of dissatisfied participants decreased to 3.23% 120 days after surgery. We observed no statistically significant differences in DBI perceptions. Fast weight loss caused by bariatric surgery appeared to generate a perception of ghost fat. Somatosensory interventions and/or a longer follow-up are needed to alter this persistent distortion of body dimensions.