Background
Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are mental health disorders often characterized by lower body appreciation and higher sense of body shame. Understanding how body appreciation and body shame affect the risk for eating disorders is less known. Researchers have been exploring how developing body compassion can serve as a protective factor in the treatment of eating disorders.
The Study
A research team in Spain investigated whether body compassion changed the effect of body shame and the risk of developing an eating disorder. The team first analyzed whether they could adapt the Body Compassion Scale into Spanish. The team next looked at whether body appreciation and body shame were mediators in the relationship between body compassion and the risk of eating disorders.
The Results
The study confirmed that the Body Compassion Scale could successfully be adapted into the Spanish language. This is an important step to ensure that the instruments and scales used to study the disorders are culturally adaptable and are asking the same questions across languages. The results also showed support for a model that body compassion served as a protective role on the risk of developing an eating disorder. According to their results, body compassion was directly associated with body shame, but unexpectedly did not explain a lower risk of an eating disorder. The team indicated that this points to body appreciation as a protective factor against body shame. Specifically, the cultivation of a more compassionate attitude toward one’s body may be adaptive when facing body-related threats. This study also demonstrated that internal shame has a stronger relationship to developing an eating disorder risk. While the results are based on survey responses and cannot be overgeneralized, the cross-cultural study adds nuance to the important topic of body image and mental health disorders. The development of self-compassion may serve as an important treatment target for those at risk of eating disorders.
