The acceptance model of intuitive eating: A comparison of women in emerging adulthood, early adulthood, and middle adulthood.

Abstract

The acceptance model of intuitive eating (Avalos & Tylka, 2006) posits that body acceptance by others helps women appreciate their body and resist adopting an observer's perspective of their body, which contribute to their eating intuitively/adaptively. We extended this model by integrating body mass index (BMI) into its structure and investigating it with emerging (ages 18-25 years old, n = 318), early (ages 26-39 years old, n = 238), and middle (ages 40-65 years old, n = 245) adult women. Multiple-group analysis revealed that this model fit the data for all age groups. Body appreciation and resistance to adopt an observer's perspective mediated the body acceptance by others-intuitive eating link. Body acceptance by others mediated the social support-body appreciation and BMI-body appreciation links. Early and middle adult women had stronger negative BMI-body acceptance by others and BMI-intuitive eating relationships and a stronger positive body acceptance by others-body appreciation relationship than emerging adult women. Early adult women had a stronger positive resistance to adopt observer's perspective-body appreciation relationship than emerging and middle adult women.

Appearance Dissatisfaction, Body Appreciation, and Sexual Health in Women Across Adulthood

“…With respect to positive body image, four studies have examined specifically the relationship between age and body appreciation, with inconsistent results. For instance, Augustus-Horvath and Tylka (2011) found that midlife women (aged 40-65 in their survey) experienced significantly less body appreciation when compared to emerging adult women (aged 18-25) but not when comparedtowomenaged26-39. Swami,Hadji-Michael,andFurnham (2008a) also reported a small negative correlation between age and body appreciation in their survey of young British women.…”

Why we eat what we eat. The Eating Motivation Survey (TEMS)

“…Physiological factors like hunger determine, without question, our eating behavior (Schupp & Renner, 2011a). Tylka (2006) suggested that adaptive eating, which she termed 'intuitive eating', is predominantly based on physiological hunger and satiety cues rather than situational and emotional cues (cf., Augustus-Horvath & Tylka, 2011). However, food has an incentive value beyond satiation since the pleasure of eating is also an important motivation for eating (e.g., Jackson, Cooper, Mintz, & Albino, 2003) and food choice (e.g., Steptoe, Pollard, & Wardle, 1995).…”

Intuitive Eating Practices and Attitudes of Registered Dietitian Nutritionists

“…This is consistent with other studies which have a confirmed negative correlations between intuitive eating and BMI. 10,52,53 There was no significant difference between the intuitive eating groups and HEI scores. Nor was IES-2 observed to be correlated to HEI scores.…”