The central role of self-reassurance to explain body and eating attitudes

Literature has emphasized the significant role of social acceptance and connectedness in well-being and the benefits of cultivating a positive body image in the prevention and treatment of body and eating-related difficulties. The current study aims to examine whether strategies of self-reassurance and body-image appreciation mediate the association of feelings of social safeness and acceptance with the "core" dimensions of body and eating-related psychopathology (restraint, eating concern, weight concern, and shape concern), while controlling the effects of body mass index (BMI). Participants were 309 Portuguese women, aged between 18 and 50 years that completed self-report measures. Results from the performed path analysis revealed that self-reassurance and body-image appreciation mediated the impact of feelings of social safeness and acceptance on eating psychopathology-related dimensions. Results seem to suggest that women who perceive the self as acceptable and desirable tend to adopt self-reassurance strategies. These strategies in turn seem to predict a protective and caring relationship with one's own body and decreased severity of eating psychopathology symptoms. This path model explained 22%, 27%, 51%, and 47% of restraint, eating concern, weight concern, and shape concern, respectively, and showed an excellent model fit. Our findings appear to offer significant insights in the field of body and eating-related psychopathology and seem to support the pertinence of creating intervention programs for women from the general community with body and eating-related difficulties that encourage the adoption of self-reassurance strategies and promote a positive and respectful relationship with one's own body image.Level of evidence V, cross-sectional descriptive study.