According to research, BDD is still very under-recognized and under-diagnosed. A majority of research studies on BDD prevalence found that not a single person who actually had BDD had the BDD diagnosis recorded in their medical record. Many mental health professionals are less familiar with BDD than with many other serious disorders, and BDD can go undiagnosed for this reason. In addition, people with BDD may not speak up about their body image concerns, even when BDD is the major reason they’re seeking mental health treatment.

A study of people with BDD who were hospitalized on a psychiatric inpatient unit asked them why they hadn’t told their clinician about their BDD symptoms. Reasons they gave (from most to least common) were the following: Feeling too embarrassed, being afraid of being judged negatively, feeling that their clinician wouldn’t understand their concerns, not knowing that there is treatment for BDD, not being asked about BDD, feeling BDD wasn’t a big problem, not wanting to know that their body image concerns were a problem, and thinking that other people didn’t have this problem (that they were the only one).

If you have BDD it’s very important to tell your treating clinician about your BDD symptoms, because BDD is a known and treatable disorder. If you have BDD, you should get treatment for BDD. If you don’t reveal your BDD symptoms, you may not get the right treatment for this disorder.