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© Getty Images'Distorted': A woman will see her reflection as shorter and fatter, the study suggests.
Women's brains 'massively distort' their own body image, creating a shorter figure which can be two-thirds wider than in real life, scientists have suggested.

The research, which could explain why some slim people look in the mirror and see themselves as fat, may help to further understanding eating disorders, such as anorexia.

Scientists at University College London made the 'hall of mirrors' discovery while carrying out an experiment on people's hands.

Researchers asked volunteers to place their left hand under a board and guess the positions of the knuckles and fingertips, pointing them out with a baton.

The results, reported today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were used to assess mental models of finger length and hand width.

In general, participants estimated their hands to be about two-thirds wider and a third shorter than actual measurements showed they were.

Study leader Dr Matthew Longo, from University College London, said: 'The phrase "I know the town like the back of my hand" suggests that we have near-perfect knowledge of the size and position of our own body parts but these results show that this is far from being the case.

'Our results show dramatic distortions of hand shape, which were highly consistent across participants.