Feeding the inner critic: Self-criticism and shame in the association of affiliative memories with emotional and disordered eating in women

Abstract

Emotional eating, defined as overeating in response to intense negative emotions, is considered part of a disordered eating continuum, as a milder form of binge eating. It is linked to high emotional dysregulation and risk factors like negative traumatic childhood memories, which have been associated with several negative psychopathological outcomes. Recent research has started to also highlight the negative impact of the lack of early positive memories on psychopathological outcomes, including eating-related disorders. This study explores the role of early affiliative memories on emotional eating, specifically examining whether self-criticism, a strategy to mitigate feelings of shame, is linked to women's tendencies towards emotional and disordered eating attitudes. The study involved 427 female participants.

Results show that fluctuations in self-criticism levels are linked to differences in emotional and disordered eating, with higher self-criticism corresponding to more severe emotional and disordered eating. The path analysis showed that a lack of early affiliative memories was associated to emotional and disordered eating, through the mediating roles of internal shame and self-criticism. The model explained 44 % of disordered eating variance, showing an excellent model fit.

These findings suggest that internal shame and self-criticism are defensive mechanisms tied to the absence of early affiliative experiences. Self-criticism strategies seem to amplify self-monitoring and negative self-evaluations, leading to emotional eating as a coping mechanism. Clinically, our study incites the development of compassion-focused interventions to address shame and self-criticism, and promote adaptive emotional regulation strategies, preventing emotional eating attitudes and reducing the risk for further disordered eating behaviours.