A daily diary study of self-compassion, body image, and eating behavior in female college students

• Higher daily self-compassion was associated with better daily body appreciation and body image.
• Higher daily self-compassion was associated with higher daily levels of intuitive eating.
• Higher daily self-compassion was associated with lower daily levels of restrained eating.
• Higher mean levels of self-compassion over a week were linked to better body image and eating habits.
• Results generally held when controlling for daily and weekly self-esteem.

Although self-compassion is associated with healthier body image and eating behavior, these findings have generally emerged at the between-persons level only. The present study investigated the unique contributions of within-person variability in self-compassion, and between-persons differences in self-compassion, to body image and eating behavior. Over seven days, 92 female college students completed nightly measures of self-compassion, self-esteem, dietary restraint, intuitive eating, body appreciation, body satisfaction, and state body image. Multilevel modeling revealed that within-persons, day-to-day fluctuations in self-compassion contributed to day-to-day fluctuations in body image and eating. Between-persons, participants’ average levels of self-compassion across days contributed to their average levels of body image and eating over the week. Results generally held when controlling for within- and between-persons self-esteem. Evidently, the eating and body image benefits of self-compassion may come not only from being a generally self-compassionate person, but also from treating oneself more self-compassionately than usual on a given day.