Black Young Adult Superwomen in the Face of Gendered Racial Microaggressions: Contextualizing Challenges With Acceptance and Avoidance and Emotional Eating

Abstract Background Black young adult women (ages 18–35) are at disproportionate risk for obesity and emotional eating. Emotional eating interventions target psychological flexibility, such as reducing experiential avoidance and increasing acceptance of food-related thoughts. Yet Black women face gendered racism, and some endorse roles that reduce psychological flexibility, such as the superwoman schema role. Culturally centered stress and coping has often been overlooked, leading to an incomplete understanding of processes that engender emotional eating and the implications for appropriate and effective interventions for Black young adult women. Purpose We investigated direct and indirect pathways of associations between stress from gendered racial microaggressions to emotional eating through the endorsement of superwoman schema and two aspects of psychological flexibility. Methods Black young adult women (N = 504; Mage = 24.72; 75.2% African American; 98.4% cisgender) participated in an online survey wherein they reported demographics, stress from gendered racial microaggressions, superwoman schema, experiential avoidance, acceptance of food-related thoughts, and emotional eating. Path analysis was conducted to examine direct and indirect effects. Results Results provided evidence for indirect associations between more stress from gendered racial microaggressions and more emotional eating. More stress was associated with greater endorsement of the superwoman schema which was associated with more experiential avoidance and less acceptance of food-related thoughts, which were each associated with more emotional eating. Conclusions Endorsement of superwoman schema and concomitant avoidance and less acceptance may be one way that gendered racial stress propels emotional eating. Future research could test intervention components that disrupt this path. Stress from mistreatment due to being a Black woman is associated with endorsing a need to be strong, which is associated with avoiding experiences that may lead to negative emotional states and being less accepting of distressing thoughts about food, which are each associated with more emotional eating among Black young adult women. Lay Summary Emotional eating is eating in order to alleviate negative emotions, like those from stress. Black young adult women face particular forms of stress from being mistreated at the intersection of their race and gender. This research was needed to better understand processe