How Your Attachment Style Affects Your Relationship With Food

Attachment theory explores the relationship between a parent and child and how that relationship affects future development and behavior. Insecure attachment has been found in many research studies to be connected with higher rates of disordered eating. Your attachment style can reveal itself in how you relate with others and can also show up in your relationship with food as well.

​There are 3 different insecure attachment styles that include: Anxious, Avoidant, and Disorganized. Let's dive into each insecure attachment style and how they can show up in your relationship with food:

Anxious Attachment Style

Can show up as fear of abandonment so relationships can take up a lot of focus. In your relationship with food, this can show up as Binge Eating. Food will never leave you. A planned binge can ​take up a lot of time and attention keeping you connected to food and when it finally happens can ​feel like meeting up with a dear old friend. Binging can provide a sense of safety that something is always going to be there for you.​ Binge eating can provide the experience of connection that is desired and makes it feel difficult to break up with this kind of relationship with food.

Avoidant Attachment Style

Can show up as wanting close relationships and keeping individuals at a distance to protect yourself from being hurt. In your relationship with food, this can often show up as Restricting. Already having the belief that others will not fulfill your emotional needs, food is restricted as well. The experience of emotional fulfillment can feel so overwhelming in your body, as it is not what is known, that it can feel easier to restrict food to not have to feel that discomfort. Not eating enough can be a disembodying experience and keep you at a distance from yourself and others.

Disorganized Attachment Style

Can show up as feeling on edge in relationships as your home environment felt chaotic growing up where you never knew if you were safe or not. This can show up in your relationship with food as Restrict-Binge-Purge Cycle. The desire to want to feel close, the overwhelm in feeling close, and then trying to gain control over the overwhelm can play out as binging to experience closeness, purging to navigate the overwhelm, and restricting to feel back in control. This is a cycle that can feel familiar from the chaos you grew up in. Having a calm day in your relationship with food can actually feel more uncomfortable than this cycle as your nervous system has become accustomed to the experience of dysregulation.

Side note:

As attachment style can change based on the different kinds of relationships you have in your life, so too can your relationship with food. You are an individual and your attachment style and relationship with food will be unique to you where it may show up differently than what we have delved into here.

Having awareness of your attachment style can be empowering so that you have a deeper understanding of why you interact with your food the way you do. Change begins with cultivating awareness of what is. Awareness can create space for you to have a choice to show up in your relationship with food in a familiar way or in a new way.

Amir Levine in his booked Attached explains: “It is very important that you be compassionate with yourself. The worse you feel about yourself, the more you'll want to go back to the false safety of the bad relationship you were in. Your attachment system gets activated more when you feel bad about yourself.” It can be the same in your relationship with food. The more you judge yourself for how you reacted to your emotions and sensations with food, the more you may find yourself relying on your food behaviors to support you in feeling regulated and safe. Self compassion and empathy are crucial as you learn to navigate your attachment style when in relationship with food in different ways.

As a Thanksgiving treat, my Intro to Somatic Eating™ mini course is back on sale for 50% off until November 28th. If you would like more tools in your eating toolbox, this mini course will offer you three new Somatic Eating™ tools to support you with creating a new relationship with food. You can find the link to the Intro to Somatic Eating™ mini course in the show notes and as always if you have any questions, email me at support@stephaniemara.com anytime.