Previous research about body size estimation in obesity reported heterogeneous results. This might be related to the fact that the tasks adopted explored different body representations. Classifying the previous studies according to the specific body representation probed (i.e. implicit, explicit or both) might clarify discordant findings. A systematic review and meta-analysis of research articles assessing body size estimation in individuals affected by obesity compared with healthy weight individuals were performed in PubMed and Web of Science. Additional records were identified by reference lists inspection. The last search was run in May 2021. Two independent authors performed data extraction according to predefined criteria. Both groups either overestimated or underestimated the implicit body representation depending on the task used and the body part considered. Conversely, the explicit representation of the body was mainly overestimated by both individuals with obesity and healthy weight. In tasks relying on both these representations, overestimation and underestimation were reported in both groups, possibly depending on the degree of which each procedure relied on the explicit and/or implicit representation of the body. According to the meta-analysis, individuals with obesity tended to be significantly less accurate in body size estimations than participants with healthy weight. We confirmed that heterogeneous findings in body size estimation in obesity are related to the adoption of different tasks, which likely involve different body representations. We discussed the role of body dissatisfaction and altered somatosensation in the lower accuracy observed in obesity.

先前关于肥胖体重估计的研究报告了不同的结果。这可能与所采用的任务探索了不同的身体表征有关。根据所探查的特定身体表征（即隐性、显性或两者）对先前的研究进行分类可能会澄清不一致的发现。在 PubMed 和 Web of Science 中对评估受肥胖影响的个体与健康体重个体的体型估计的研究文章进行了系统回顾和荟萃分析。通过参考列表检查确定了其他记录。最后一次搜索是在 2021 年 5 月进行的。两位独立作者根据预定义的标准进行了数据提取。根据所使用的任务和所考虑的身体部位，两组要么高估了要么低估了隐式身体表示。相反，肥胖和健康体重的个体主要高估了身体的明确表现。在依赖这两种表征的任务中，两组都报告了高估和低估，这可能取决于每个程序依赖于身体的显式和/或隐式表征的程度。根据荟萃分析，与健康体重的参与者相比，肥胖者在估计体型方面的准确度往往要低得多。我们证实，肥胖中体型估计的异质性发现与采用不同的任务有关，这些任务可能涉及不同的身体表征。