Body image imposes or justifies eating patterns. Structured eating behaviours have been shown to correlate with BMI (1), eating disorders (1) and weight loss outcome (2). However, their relationship with perception and distortion of body image has not been investigated. The current study included 92 people, 68 males (34 athletes / 34 non-athletes) and 24 females (8 athletes/ 16 non-athletes). We evaluated anthropometric data and estimated body composition through skinfold measurement. Quantitative data of perceived and intentional body image were obtained by self-assessment with Somatomorphic Matrix software (3). The control of dietary restraint was assessed with FC12 and RC16 questionnaires (4). Statistical analysis revealed significant differences for actual and perceived body image in non-athletes. More specifically, women non-athletes were found to overestimate body fat and FFMI (t(15) = 3.741, p = 0.002, t(15) = 6.309, p = 0000 respectively), while men non-athletes underestimated FFMI (t(33) = -2.604, p = 0.14). Flexible and rigid dieting strategies were equally adopted by study subgroups, and correlated significantly (r(91) = 0.649, p <0.001). Classification as mainly flexible (score > 5 only in FC12), mainly rigid (score > 7 only in RC16), highly-structured (score > 5 in FC12 and > 7 in RC16) and non-structured (score < 5 in FC12 and < 7 in RC16) dieters and application of one-way ANOVA revealed statistically significant differences for the nonconformities of actual and perceived % body fat (F(3,88) = 2.583, p = 0.058) and FFMI (F(3,88) = 6.334, p = 0.001), as well as for the nonconformities of actual and intentional % body fat (F(3,88) = 3.068, p = 0.032) and intentional FFMI (F (3,88) = 4.913, p = 0.001). Further application of Hochberg post-hoc test revealed that flexible dieters presented lower discrepancy for actual and perceived % body fat than highly-structured dieters (-3.3442 ± 1.2071 vs 1.3406 ± 6.1629, p = 0.45 respectively). In addition, in flexible dieters perceived and actual FFMI were closer than in non-structured dieters (-1.2857 ± 2.79966 vs 1.3477 ± 2.6448, p = 0.005 respectively), and the same was calculated for intentional and actual FFMI (0.8489 ± 3.32429 vs 4.2620 ± 3.6, p = 0.002 respectively). In contrast, rigid dieters tended to underestimate their FFMI compared to non-structured dieters (-5.1615 ± 3.15271 vs 1.3477 ± 2.6446, p = 0.018) and to aim to rather low % body fat than non-structured dieters (-18.32 ± 4 vs -2.9044 ± 6.8, p = 0.035 respectively). Our data suggest that participation in athletic activities may prevent body image distortion, while dietary strategies do associate with more accurate body image perception and body image dissatisfaction.