Self-Silencing, Emotional Awareness, and Eating Behaviors in College Women

Abstract

Self-silencing (or the suppression of expressing one’s thoughts, feelings, and needs) can have a negative impact on the mental health of women, from depression to disordered eating behaviors. The authors examined the relationship between self-silencing and disordered eating as well as intuitive eating. The authors also explored whether emotional awareness would moderate these relationships because conflicts over expressiveness are associated with emotional problems and eating disorders. The sample comprised 140 college women (52% White; 36% Black) under the age of 24 from a midwestern urban university. Their results revealed that emotional awareness moderated the relationships between self-silencing and disordered eating and intuitive eating. Specifically, when there were lower levels of emotional awareness, self-silencing with disordered eating and intuitive eating were unrelated; however, with higher levels of emotional awareness together with more self-silencing, participants presented with more disordered eating and less intuitive eating. The findings highlight the importance of supporting women’s emotional awareness in conjunction with their expressiveness of thoughts, feelings, and needs to increase intuitive eating and decrease disordered eating.