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In a series of studies of normal women, estimates of body width and depth did not correlate significantly with the measured sizes of the body parts apparently being assessed. This challenges the convention whereby estimates of body size are divided by real body sizes to produce indices of overestimation or underestimation of body size, e.g., the Body Perception Index (BPI). Body size estimates, untransformed by real sizes, were found to be closely related to certain attitudes towards the body, especially to feelings that the body was too fat and a source of stigma. Estimates were also significantly influenced by the posture adopted during the measuring process. Attitudes towards the body were strongly linked to self‐esteem and neurotic symptomatology, but were generally independent of subjects' actual body sizes and relative weights.