Exploring self-compassion as a refuge against recalling the body-related shaming of caregiver eating messages on dimensions of objectified body consciousness in college women

• Caregiver eating messages were examined in relation to body objectification.
• Self-compassion (SC) was tested as a moderator.
• Restrictive/critical (RC) and pressure to eat messages had positive links to body shame.
• Both types of eating messages were inversely linked to appearance control beliefs.
• SC attenuated the links between RC messages and both body shame and surveillance.

Guided by an overarching body-related shame regulation framework, the present investigation examined the associations between caregiver eating messages and dimensions of objectified body consciousness and further explored whether self-compassion moderated these links in a sample of 322 U.S. college women. Correlational findings indicated that retrospective accounts of restrictive/critical caregiver eating messages were positively related to body shame and negatively related to self-compassion and appearance control beliefs. Recollections of experiencing pressure to eat from caregivers were positively correlated with body shame and inversely associated with appearance control beliefs. Higher self-compassion was associated with lower body shame and body surveillance. Self-compassion attenuated the associations between restrictive/critical caregiver eating messages and both body surveillance and body shame. Implications for advancing our understanding of the adaptive properties of a self-compassionate self-regulatory style in mitigating recall of familial body-related shaming on the internalized body-related shame regulating processes of body objectification in emerging adulthood are discussed.