What do you see?

There's this film we've been watching in my women's health class called Thin. It's a documentary of girls who struggle with eating disorders at a rehab center. At one point, one of the girls starts crying during their community meeting and screaming that she wants to be thin and that there are so many girls at her school her are thin and she's not one of them, but to us in the audience, it is apparent that she is well below a healthy weight. One of the activities they do at this rehab center is that they have the girls trace their life-size body on a wall. They then have the girls stand in front of these pictures - the difference between the drawing and the real body is striking. These girls honestly believe themselves to be much bigger than they actually are. So that leads me to a few questions:
Where do we get this distorted image of our own bodies?
What are the consequences of having a negative or positive body image?
What can we do to come to love our bodies?
What resources are out there to help those who are deeply struggling with body image?

I hope to be able to explore these questions in more detail later. Until then, I think that this commercial gives us a lot to think about.