Body image disturbance is a significant maintenance and prognosis factor in eating disorders. Up to now no controlled studies have compared eating disorder treatments with and without a treatment component centred on body image. This paper includes a controlled study comparing cognitive behavioural treatment for eating disorders with and without a component for body image using virtual reality. The objective of this work was to analyze whether both types of treatment produced a clinically significant change in patients also diagnostic of anorexia and bulimia. Thirty-four participants diagnosed with eating disorders were treated and compared with the general population. The results at the end of the treatment and the follow-up indicate that the condition in which body image was treated produced a clinically significant change in anorexia and bulimia nervosa. In the condition without treatment of body image, no significant change in anorexia was produced. On the other hand, the participants diagnosed with bulimia nervosa produced a clinically significant change during follow-up.