Understanding Body Image, Body Dissatisfaction, and the Drive to Diet: The Role of Emotional Regulation
In our modern world, body image and the desire to achieve our ideal physique are common thoughts that influence our daily lives and health choices. Scrolling social media and other platforms promoting slim, often edited bodies as the beauty standard, it isn’t shocking that more people are feeling the pressure to diet and lose weight. Unfortunately, this pressure often fuels body dissatisfaction, where individuals view their bodies negatively, feeling they must change their appearance to meet societal expectations. But understanding the deeper factors behind body dissatisfaction and learning how to regulate our emotions is instrumental in progressing towards a more positive self-image and healthier relationship with food.
The Roots of Body Dissatisfaction and Dieting Desires
Body dissatisfaction is a common experience that affects millions of people and in my experience over the years, effects both women and men. It involves the negative perception of one’s body, often focusing on weight, body shape, or specific body parts. Research has shown that social media exposure is a significant driver of body dissatisfaction. Platforms like Instagram present carefully curated and edited images of people, leading viewers, especially young women, to engage in upward social comparisons. This comparison with idealized bodies results in feelings of inadequacy and a heightened desire to diet or lose weight to achieve similar appearances.
The desire to diet or alter one’s body is often not just about health but a reaction to perceived social pressures and standards. Dieting, in many cases, becomes a way to control body shape and align with these external ideals, sometimes leading individuals down the path of restrictive eating, emotional eating, or other disordered eating behaviors. Unfortunately, these dieting habits can escalate, often resulting in unhealthy relationships with food and body image, as the pursuit of the perfect body becomes a never ending pursuit.
Emotional Abuse and its Impact on Body Image
Recent studies reveal that childhood experiences, particularly emotional abuse, can have a profound impact on body image and contribute to disordered eating patterns later in life. For individuals who have experienced emotional abuse, negative self-perception and body dissatisfaction are common. This link exists because emotional abuse often disrupts the development of a stable self-image and self-worth, leaving individuals feeling inherently flawed or inadequate. These feelings can drive individuals to use dieting as a means to control their appearance or seek external validation through weight loss.
How Emotional Regulation Affects Body Image
One of the crucial insights into managing body dissatisfaction lies in understanding emotional regulation, the ability to manage and respond to our emotions in a healthy way. Emotional regulation skills can significantly influence body image, as they provide tools for coping with negative self-perceptions and external pressures.
Two main emotional regulation strategies play a role here: Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression. Cognitive Reappraisal, an adaptive strategy, involves rethinking negative beliefs or assumptions, such as the idea that thinness equates to beauty or worth. Studies show that Cognitive Reappraisal can help individuals maintain a positive body image by reducing the impact of upward social comparisons. In contrast, Expressive Suppression, a maladaptive strategy, involves suppressing emotions instead of addressing them. This suppression can lead to emotional exhaustion, and in people with high body dissatisfaction, it may increase tendencies toward unhealthy eating patterns as a coping mechanism.
Understanding and practicing adaptive emotional regulation, such as Cognitive Reappraisal, can help individuals reframe their body image beliefs, reducing the desire to diet excessively and promoting a healthier view of self. For example, practicing gratitude for what one’s body can do, rather than how it looks, or focusing on long-term health rather than appearance can shift perspectives, building a more resilient self-image.
The Power of Self-Acceptance and Healthy Coping Mechanisms
Positive body image isn’t about ignoring desires for change but about aligning those desires with a healthy understanding of self-worth. People who can identify and address their emotions are better equipped to handle the societal pressures of beauty standards. By developing emotional regulation skills, individuals can break the cycle of body dissatisfaction and dieting impulses, choosing instead to engage in self-care practices that support overall well-being.
For those who have experienced emotional abuse or trauma, therapy focused on emotional regulation can be particularly beneficial. Such therapy can include learning to identify emotions, practicing self-compassion, and fostering a sense of self-worth that isn’t tied to appearance. Recognizing that worth isn’t based on body shape but on who we are as individuals can be transformative.
Moving Toward a Healthier Self-Image
Achieving a positive body image is an ongoing journey, but with awareness, emotional regulation, and self-acceptance, it’s possible to break free from the traps of body dissatisfaction and restrictive dieting. By focusing on emotional resilience and a balanced view of health, individuals can shift their perspective from one dominated by social comparison to one rooted in personal well-being.
Understanding how to manage emotions and develop a positive body image can empower individuals to appreciate their bodies for what they are—not as objects to be modified but as integral parts of their identities. This shift can reduce the societal pressure to diet, ultimately leading to a more fulfilling and balanced relationship with oneself.
How Meditation Helps with Emotional Eating and Emotional Regulation
I know, everyone reading this was waiting for the new method to improve emotional regulation. Unfortunately, meditation is still that method. I can’t tell you how may articles and books that I have read to this point through my endless research in this area, and they always conclude that meditation/mindfulness/breath work is influential in improving emotional regulation and this is why.
- Reduce Uncontrolled Eating: Those who practice meditation had lower scores in uncontrolled eating, a behavior often driven by stress and negative emotions. Meditation, particularly mindfulness, helps individuals become more aware of internal cues like hunger and satiety, allowing them to respond to these cues instead of reacting to external or emotional triggers.
- Enhances Self-Regulation: Meditation strengthens self-regulation skills by improving attention and cognitive control. This is key in managing impulses related to emotional eating, helping individuals make mindful food choices rather than eating in response to stress or emotional distress.
- Lowers Anxiety and Stress: Emotional eating is often linked to high stress and anxiety. The study shows that regular meditation can lower anxiety levels, especially when practiced consistently over a longer period. This reduction in anxiety may reduce the need to use food as a coping mechanism
Just start with simple breathwork and follow your breath. Take 10 deep breaths and exhale longer than you inhale and this is always my recommended starting point for those who don’t think they have the time or patience to start a meditation practice. But starting a consistent routine of following your breath for just 1 minute a day can really improve your ability to control your emotions and emotional responses to food.
Articles referenced
Barone, E., Carfagno, M., Marafioti, N., Bello, R., Arsenio, E., Marone, L., … & Monteleone, A. M. (2024). Impact of emotional abuse on eating disorder psychopathology: a multiple mediation
Karvounopoulos, N., Afentouli, P., & Louka, P. (2023). Do eating behaviours (restraint, uncontrolled and emotional eating) and the general use of emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) predict state body dissatisfaction?. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience & Mental Health, 6(1), 25-31.
Oliveira, J. P. T., do Carmo, S. G., de Almeida Aragão, B., Cunha, J., & Botelho, P. B. (2023). Meditation practices and their relationship with eating behavior, weight changes, and mental health in adults from different regions of Brazil: A cross-sectional study. Nutrition, 109, 111972.
