“I’m never enough”: Associations of childhood emotional abuse subtypes with overweight preoccupation and dietary restraint among women

Abstract

Childhood emotional abuse from authority figures encompasses verbal abuse, emotional rejection, and overexpectations. Although global emotional abuse is an established correlate of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating, the unique roles of these specific subtypes remain underexamined. Across two studies of adult women recruited from CloudResearch ( N s = 2566; 824), we evaluated associations between authority figure abuse subtypes, body image, and dietary restraint. Bivariate correlations revealed that all subtypes related to poorer body image and higher restraint. Hierarchical regressions demonstrated that emotional abuse subtypes explained incremental variance across outcomes beyond demographic factors. When modeled simultaneously, overexpectations emerged as the sole subtype independently associated with overweight preoccupation, cognitive restraint, and dietary restraint, whereas verbal abuse and emotional rejection were not. However, high shared variance among subtypes attenuated the unique statistical association of overexpectations. These findings highlight authority overexpectations as a potential developmental correlate of weight-related distress. Future prospective research should examine whether experiencing overexpectations relates to internalized perfectionism or rejection sensitivity, and expand traditional appearance-focused models to encompass broader relational stressors.