Exploring self-compassion as a refuge against recalling the body-related shaming of caregiver eating messages on dimensions of objectified body consciousness in college women

Highlights

• Caregiver eating messages were examined in relation to body objectification.

• Self-compassion (SC) was tested as a moderator.

• Restrictive/critical (RC) and pressure to eat messages had positive links to body shame.

• Both types of eating messages were inversely linked to appearance control beliefs.

• SC attenuated the links between RC messages and both body shame and surveillance.

Abstract

Guided by an overarching body-related shame regulation framework, the present investigation examined the associations between caregiver eating messages and dimensions of objectified body consciousness and further explored whether self-compassion moderated these links in a sample of 322 U.S. college women. Correlational findings indicated that retrospective accounts of restrictive/critical caregiver eating messages were positively related to body shame and negatively related to self-compassion and appearance control beliefs. Recollections of experiencing pressure to eat from caregivers were positively correlated with body shame and inversely associated with appearance control beliefs. Higher self-compassion was associated with lower body shame and body surveillance. Self-compassion attenuated the associations between restrictive/critical caregiver eating messages and both body surveillance and body shame. Implications for advancing our understanding of the adaptive properties of a self-compassionate self-regulatory style in mitigating recall of familial body-related shaming on the internalized body-related shame regulating processes of body objectification in emerging adulthood are discussed.

Introduction

Objectified body consciousness represents a reprioritized self-awareness directed from self-objectification, or having internalized an outsider's view of the body as an object to be gazed upon and scrutinized (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997, McKinley, 2011, McKinley and Hyde, 1996). Research suggests that objectified body consciousness appears to be especially pronounced for women at younger life stages (McKinley, 1999, McKinley, 2006, Moradi and Huang, 2008). Notably, a preponderance of scholarship has been devoted to two components of objectified body consciousness: body shame and body surveillance, leaving examination of the third component, appearance control beliefs highly underdeveloped (e.g., Fitzsimmons-Craft et al., 2011, McKinley, 2011, Sanftner, 2011; see Moradi & Huang, 2008 for a review). McKinley and Hyde (1996) defined body shame as the tendency to experience shame when one has not lived up to the internalized, culturally-proscribed norms of body size or weight; body surveillance reflects constantly monitoring one's body and being preoccupied with worry over how one's body appears in the eyes of others. Appearance control beliefs indicate attitudes characterized by perceptions of being able to successfully manage one's weight and/or other aspects of appearance if sufficient effort is invested (McKinley & Hyde, 1996).

Despite the sizeable research base on body shame and body surveillance, very little research has explored possible early familial socializing antecedents associated with objectified body consciousness (see Lindberg et al., 2006, McKinley, 1999, Tylka and Hill, 2004 for notable exceptions). Goss and Gilbert's (2002) integrative biopsychosociocultural conceptual model can be used to address this gap in the literature. This model emphasizes the relevance of familial shaming experiences in promoting internal (i.e., self-directed criticism and negative affect) and external (i.e., beliefs others look down upon you or view you as inferior) body weight control shame regulation dynamics, which give rise to and perpetuate disordered eating. Aspects of this model have received empirical support (e.g., Cardi et al., 2014, Ferreira et al., 2013, Kelly and Carter, 2013, Kelly et al., 2014, Manjrekar et al., 2013, Matos et al., 2014, Pinto-Gouveia et al., 2014).

Accordingly, drawing from Goss and Gilbert's (2002) model, the present investigation examined the relationships between participants’ recalled frequency of the messages regarding eating and food consumption conveyed by early caregivers (e.g., parents, grandparents, babysitters, daycare providers, etc.) and dimensions of their current experience of objectified body consciousness in an ethnically-diverse sample of emerging adult women attending college. In this way, recollections of caregiver eating messages along both restrictive/critical and pressure to eat (i.e., coercive) lines (Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010) are framed as representing potential sources of prior familial body-related shaming experiences. Certain components of objectified body consciousness (i.e., body surveillance and appearance control beliefs) represent internalized cognitive-behavioral processes, which operate to regulate experiences of both internal and external body shame.

We further were interested in ascertaining whether participants’ levels of self-compassion would moderate these associations (Neff, 2003). Buddhism-inspired self-compassion encompasses the idea of valuing self-kindness over self-judgment, common humanity over social isolation, and mindfulness over over-identification (Neff, 2003). It is a health-promoting self-regulatory capacity recognized as a positive correlate of an array of well-being attributes and inversely linked to a comparably diverse spectrum of adverse psychological outcomes (e.g., Hall, Row, Wuensch, & Godley, 2013; see Barnard and Curry, 2011, MacBeth and Gumley, 2012 for comprehensive reviews). Importantly, research and theory bolster self-compassion as a healthier alternative to engaging in self-criticism (Gilbert, 2009, Neff, 2003) and experiencing shame in the face of failure or having one's perceived flaws or imperfections exposed (e.g., Albertson et al., 2014, Ferreira et al., 2013, Gilbert, 2011, Johnson and O’Brien, 2013, Kelly et al., 2014, Mosewich et al., 2011, Wong and Mak, 2013, Woods and Proeve, 2014).

For women in Western culture, the dogmatic pursuit of the elusive thin body ideal is considered by many to be a moral imperative (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997, McKinley and Hyde, 1996). Understandably then, falling short from attaining thinness or not expending sufficient effort towards effectively controlling one's weight and appearance may be construed as contemptuous behavior warranting self-inflicted shame and other-inflicted shame in the forms of social stigma and interpersonal rejection (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997, Goss and Allan, 2010, Goss and Gilbert, 2002, McKinley and Hyde, 1996). Given such a powerful social reinforcing agent, scholars suggest it is adaptive for young women to be acculturated to view the experience of body shame as intolerable and therefore be motivated to invest much time and energy in averting its occurrence (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997, Goss and Allan, 2010, Goss and Gilbert, 2002, McKinley and Hyde, 1996).

This stance is aligned with Gilbert's (1997) theory of social rank mentality, in which individuals are overly preoccupied with, for instance, how their level of physical attractiveness stands in relation to others in the social hierarchy and consequently are sensitive to any threats that may challenge their ability to secure access to social approval and acceptance (Gilbert, 2011, Goss and Gilbert, 2002, Matos et al., 2014, Pinto-Gouveia et al., 2014). Yet, the perceived social advantages garnered from attempting to conform to the thin ideal as a means to avoid social censure and inferiority may come at the cost of chronic, “normalized” body dissatisfaction (Rodin, Silberstein, & Striegel-Moore, 1984) compounded by unrelenting social/body comparison processes (Cardi et al., 2014, Fitzsimmons-Craft et al., 2012, Pinto-Gouveia et al., 2014) and potentially their most pernicious outcomes (e.g., internalized body shame and eating disorders; Bessenoff and Snow, 2006, Cardi et al., 2014, Goss and Allan, 2010, Goss and Gilbert, 2002, Matos et al., 2014, McKinley and Hyde, 1996).

From this vantage point then, body surveillance and appearance control beliefs may be framed as interrelated cognitive-behavioral processes that arise as a consequence of self-objectification to prevent the emergence of or to lessen the negative impact of internalized body shame (i.e., both the distressing emotion and self-critical thoughts; McKinley, 2011, McKinley and Hyde, 1996, Moradi and Huang, 2008). For instance, body shame reflects the strength of an individual's ingrained beliefs regarding how shame is a natural and expected outcome for failing to conform to cultural and/or personal standards of the ideal body (e.g., Bessenoff and Snow, 2006, McKinley and Hyde, 1996). Holding these views in such a rigid and inflexible manner suggests that there is little room for alternative emotional reactions or critique of the standards themselves and thus over time likely results in shame becoming the dominant and automatic response when falling short from achieving culturally-dictated beauty standards (e.g., Bessenoff & Snow, 2006). This type of body-centric self-criticism could function to motivate the individual to engage in maladaptive weight control behaviors (Goss and Gilbert, 2002, Kelly and Carter, 2013, Pinto-Gouveia et al., 2014).

As such, the thoughts and feelings indicative of internalized body shame are deemed highly aversive for the individual (Manjrekar et al., 2013) as these experiences may be triggered by internal self-discrepancies (e.g., Bessenoff & Snow, 2006) as well as by the external body shaming of others, signaling threats to one's preferred social standing in desired relationships (Gilbert, 2011, Goss and Gilbert, 2002). Therefore, body surveillance and appearance control attitudes would appear to function to both impede and alleviate the harmful effects from encountering both body-related self-discrepancies and body shaming experiences. Nevertheless, these processes may also serve to further reinforce valuing the standards that give rise to thoughts and feelings of body shame in the first place, thereby maintaining evaluation of its experience as wholly undesirable (McKinley & Hyde, 1996).

For example, body surveillance denotes an intensified cognitive preoccupation with how one's appearance will be evaluated by others and a corresponding hypervigilant monitoring of the body (McKinley & Hyde, 1996). These characteristics are consistent with a heightened sensitivity to cues that might indicate both internal and external shame in order to ward off the perceived social threat associated with anticipating body shaming by others (Cardi et al., 2014, Goss and Gilbert, 2002). In conjunction with the shaming potential-detecting properties of body surveillance, believing that one has the ability to effectively control one's weight and appearance given adequate effort contributes to efficacy beliefs (e.g., Fitzsimmons-Craft et al., 2011) in being able to (a) proactively derail or pre-empt body shaming by others, and (b) mitigate the possible fallout stemming from body shaming by others and its concomitant self-critical evaluations, further underscoring the contradictory relationship young women have with their bodies in this context (McKinley & Hyde, 1996).

Considerable evidence has accrued demonstrating the power that parents and other early caregivers exert on influencing children's eating behavior and body image (e.g., Brown and Ogden, 2004, Fisher et al., 2009, Kroon Van Diest and Tylka, 2010, Rodgers and Chabrol, 2009). The two most well-established channels for transmitting this influence typically take the form of caregiver modeling and verbal commentary captured by phraseology such as encouragement, pressure, teasing, and criticism (Rodgers, 2012, Rodgers and Chabrol, 2009). This latter grouping overlaps conceptually and experientially with variants of what could be characterized as instances of familial shaming centered on the body, weight, and eating (Goss & Gilbert, 2002).

Yet to date, only a few studies have focused on clarifying the role of such early shame-engendering environmental variables in the context of objectified body consciousness (Lindberg et al., 2006, McKinley, 1999, Tylka and Hill, 2004). These studies have focused on relating: (a) maternal self-objectification and internalized body shame processes to those of their children (Lindberg et al., 2006, McKinley, 1999) and (b) general sociocultural pressures to be thin to body surveillance and body shame (Tylka & Hill, 2004). In light of this gap, we provided a more targeted exploration of the contribution of recalled shaming experiences surrounding eating and the body communicated by childhood primary caregivers in relation to internalized body shame and its associated regulatory processes of body surveillance and appearance control attitudes in emerging adulthood. A closer examination of these relationships is supported by emergent science implicating the internalization and centrality of memories of early shaming experiences in augmenting psychopathology risk, including that of eating disorders (Matos et al., 2014, Matos et al., 2012, Matos et al., 2013, Pinto-Gouveia et al., 2013). Thus to address this aim, we opted to use Kroon Van Diest and Tylka's (2010) recently developed operationalization of restrictive/critical and pressure to eat caregiver eating messages to represent these early shaming experiences.

Restrictive/critical messages refer to remembering caregivers’ blatant admonishments for failing to sufficiently limit food consumption and related commentary insinuating that one's weight may currently be viewed unfavorably or could become so (Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010). There is an unmistakably invalidating quality to these recollections, though the intention behind these words may have functioned to ironically prevent the child from being socially ostracized and experiencing body shaming by others (Goss & Gilbert, 2002). Consistent with this shaming tone, such messages have been negatively linked to perceived familial body acceptance, body appreciation, and intuitive eating (Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010). Individuals who reported higher levels of restrictive/critical caregiver eating messages also endorsed higher perceived familial pressure to be lean, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating (Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010). Iannantuono and Tylka (2012) additionally noted that college women who reported higher levels of restrictive/critical eating messages from caregivers experienced higher levels of depressive symptoms along with both attachment anxiety and avoidance.

On the other hand, pressure to eat messages reflect an explicitly coercive quality where the young woman recalls times of being forced to continue to eat what she was given perhaps even beyond natural feelings of satiety (Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010). Research suggests that this form of eating message is less clearly associated with body image and eating behavior in college students (Iannantuono and Tylka, 2012, Kroon Van Diest and Tylka, 2010), though similar themes were linked to greater dietary restraint in young girls (Carper, Fisher, & Birch, 2000). These messages, perhaps forceful in nature and possibly somewhat distressing to reflect upon, remain less conspicuously shaming in content with regard to the implied negative evaluation of one's body weight or size relative to restrictive messages. Yet, given data suggesting these messages are modestly linked to BMI (Kroon Van Diest & Tylka, 2010), for some recalling being pressured to eat could signal memories of perhaps having one's weight criticized in tandem with being told to eat more.

Nonetheless, we believe both types of caregiver eating messages manifest in participants recalling instances of (a) heightened attention to their body weight, which may be a likely contributor to their self-objectification/body surveillance (Moradi & Huang, 2008); (b) excessive parental/external control over the eating and weight regulation process (Ahmad et al., 1994, Minuchin et al., 1978, Sheldon, 2013, Sira and Ballard, 2009, Sira and Parker White, 2010) that may challenge current appearance control attitudes; and (c) variations in body-related shaming (Goss & Gilbert, 2002). Thus, being reminded of past instances of early caregivers’ overregulation of food intake, and in the case of restrictive/critical messages more overtly implied negative evaluation of weight or body size, would seem naturally associated with higher levels of objectified body consciousness.

Western cultural ideology tends to emphasize the developmental milestones of increased autonomy and individuality along with prioritizing control and discipline in taking care of one's body (Minuchin et al., 1978, Sira and Ballard, 2009). In this context, both forms of recalled caregiver eating messages may, for women, remind them of lacking personal control over their body while growing up. Consequently, these reminders of a time of not having mastery over what food went into her body may be experienced as shameful for its incompatibility with the prevailing mainstream sociocultural values she is repeatedly exposed to (Goss and Gilbert, 2002, Minuchin et al., 1978, Sheldon, 2013, Sira and Ballard, 2009, Sira and Parker White, 2010). This may be particularly salient in the case of pressure to eat messages, in which the young woman may experience dissonance over remembering grappling over these caregiver eating edicts as contrary to more dominant mainstream media and perhaps peer norms to restrict food consumption and to limit intake to a circumscribed selection of “healthy” or “good” foods.

Therefore, taken altogether, the retrospectively-measured frequency of these early body-related shaming experiences could account for the higher levels of reported objectified body consciousness in the present, especially with respect to the dimensions of internalized body shame and body surveillance. However, an opposite pattern could emerge in relation to appearance control beliefs. The possibility of observing this contrasting relationship is supported by theory and research which suggest that higher levels of this component of self-objectification may reflect more adaptive elements of self-construal, body experience, and well-being in undergraduate samples (John and Ebbeck, 2008, McKinley and Hyde, 1996, Sinclair and Myers, 2004).

Self-compassion, or turning compassion inward toward the self, is anchored in the wisdom of centuries old Buddhist spiritual philosophy, which has been translated into Western psychological science and practice only within the last decade (Germer and Neff, 2013, Gilbert, 2009, Neff, 2003). Self-compassion is characterized by acknowledging that personal inadequacies and failures are part of a shared human condition and accepting the idea that one is indeed worthy of receiving compassion (Neff, 2003). Engaging in a self-compassionate stance is perhaps especially advantageous during times of great emotional turmoil when the prospect of overcoming absorption in self-criticism, intense feelings of shame, and negative self-evaluation is seemingly insurmountable (Albertson et al., 2014, Ferreira et al., 2013, Gilbert, 2011, Johnson and O’Brien, 2013, Kelly et al., 2014, Mosewich et al., 2011, Neff, 2003, Woods and Proeve, 2014, Wong and Mak, 2013). Therefore, higher self-compassion is indicative of more frequently encountering such emotional pain with self-kindness, mindful equanimity, and a sense of connectedness with common humanity, which serve to defuse the aversiveness of shame, self-criticism, and social isolation (Albertson et al., 2014, Johnson and O’Brien, 2013, Kelly et al., 2014, Neff, 2003, Wong and Mak, 2013). In other words, from Gilbert's (2009) neurophysiological perspective, this capacity has the ability to activate self-soothing and nurturing brain mechanisms that down regulate the threat-based self-esteem/ego preservation properties of shame.

There is an impressively growing scholarship supporting the adaptive value of this self-regulatory quality across a wide range of psychological outcomes (Barnard and Curry, 2011, MacBeth and Gumley, 2012), and its buffering effect has been substantiated in the context of self-criticism and depression (Wong & Mak, 2013). These encouraging findings have also recently been extended to the domain of body image. For instance, self-compassion has been associated with fewer body image disturbances (e.g., Ferreira et al., 2013, Pinto-Gouveia et al., 2014, Wasylkiw et al., 2012) and may alternatively promote more adaptive ways of relating to one's body (e.g., Ferreira et al., 2011, Schoenefeld and Webb, 2013, Wasylkiw et al., 2012). Of particular relevance to the current study, higher levels of self-compassion are inversely associated with body shame and body surveillance in female adolescents (Mosewich et al., 2011), with trait shame/shame proneness in young adult men (Reilly, Rochlen, & Awad, 2014) and in college students (Woods & Proeve, 2014), and with perceptions of external shame in clinical and non-clinical female samples (Ferreira et al., 2013).

Finally, the results of three innovative experimental analyses bear mentioning as they provide compelling support for the present investigation's anticipated protective effect of self-compassion on the internalized shame regulating aspects of objectified body consciousness in the context of recollecting the frequency of the early body-related shaming of caregiver eating messages. In Johnson and O’Brien's (2013) study, shame-prone college students directed to enlist a self-compassion writing strategy following the recall of a shaming event reported less shame and negative affect in the immediate aftermath and diminished shame proneness and depressive symptoms at 2-week follow-up relative to a control group. Albertson and colleagues found that an age-diverse community sample of women exposed to a 3-week self-compassion training evidenced reduced levels of body dissatisfaction, body shame, and appearance-contingent self-worth; these findings were maintained at 3-month follow-up as compared to a wait-list control group (Albertson et al., 2014). Lastly, in a transdiagnostic sample of patients with eating disorders, researchers found that larger increases in self-compassion early in treatment predicted a sharper decline in reports of shame experiences (including those involving the body) over the 12-week intervention period (Kelly et al., 2014).

In summary, the previously elaborated theoretical and empirical analysis provides a persuasive rationale for objectified body consciousness being conceptualized from a novel internalized body-related shame regulation framework. We also considered how having one's food consumption (which unfolds in the context of the body and overall physical appearance management) constantly scrutinized and controlled by primary caregivers in childhood could serve as an under examined precursor to instilling attitudes and values reflective of body objectification processes. More specifically, we contend that recalling these early caregiver eating messages while completing a self-report questionnaire in emerging adulthood involves accessing memories of exposure to potential implicit and explicit body-related shaming events that originally occurred in childhood. We hypothesized that the salience of these recollections marked by the frequency of their perceived occurrence will be concurrently linked to elevated body shame and body surveillance attitudes and reduced appearance control beliefs. We further surmised that participants’ pre-existing levels of self-compassion would be inversely associated with both types of recalled caregiver eating messages as well as with body shame and body surveillance. In contrast, we anticipated that self-compassion would be positively correlated with appearance control beliefs. The hypothesized directionality of this relationship was informed by our conceptualization of appearance control beliefs reflecting themes of personal efficacy in conjunction with recent evidence demonstrating components of self-compassion being positively related to self-efficacy and control beliefs for learning in a college student sample (Iskender, 2009). We finally predicted that self-compassion would moderate the associations between recollecting the frequency of caregiver eating messages and dimensions of objectified body consciousness while controlling for BMI, given its association with body shame (e.g., McKinley, 1999), in our ethnically-diverse sample of college women.