Socio-cultural Attachment Style

By Kathryn Garland, LCSW-S, CEDS-C

Let’s talk about the importance of secure attachment in our modern world, especially as it relates to food and our bodies. Attachment theory was developed in the 1960’s by British psychiatrist, John Bowlby and later further researched by developmental psychologist, Mary Ainsworth. Attachment refers to our earliest bonds with a caregiver and its effect on our sense of self and our view of the world around us. These first, primary relationships to a mother, father, or caretaker, impact our understanding of ourselves and others throughout life. Ainsworth’s famous attachment study, the Strange Situation, involved short separations and reunions between an infant and their mother. The procedure was designed to be increasingly stressful for the infant to induce attachment behaviors — which would result in the indication of a secure or insecure base.

Attachment theory was born out of earlier behavioral research on what elements led to primates feeling connected and bonded to their mothers. In the late 1950’s, a researcher named Harry Harlow preformed (highly controversial) experiments on rhesus monkeys in his “maternal deprivation” studies. The experiment essentially asked, what’s more important to the development of “love”? Food or Security? These experiments, unethical and traumatic, removed baby monkeys from their mothers and placed them in an environment with only a wire-framed mother (whose body housed a bottle of milk). Adjacent to the milk mother was a wire-framed mother covered in cloth.

Time and time again, the baby monkeys fed from the bottle of the wire mother but spent most of their time seeking contact comfort from the cloth mother, who did not provide milk. Before this time, psychologists theorized that connection was more about receiving nutrients from the mother than about meeting emotional and physical needs. Harlow's research demonstrated that love and affection, specifically contact comfort, are essential for healthy childhood development. This attachment to the mother was not simply based on providing nourishment. Food was a secondary need, the primary desire being protection and comfort.

Later, Bowlby and Ainsworth would outline two major forms of attachment — secure and insecure. They determined that secure attachment resulted from reliable and responsive caregivers, whereas insecure attachment resulted from unreliable, unresponsive, and threatening caregivers. Around the same time that this attachment research was occurring, in the late 1950’s, psychoanalyst and social philosopher, Eric Fromm had escaped Nazi Germany and begun to write about his observations pertaining to humanity and the need to belong, he also outlined the deep fear that existed about becoming alienated from society. 

In his book, The Art of Loving Fromm discussed the rise of consumerist culture and the modern, automation of everyday life. Or as he described it the “disintegration of love from contemporary Western society”. He concluded that human beings, when deprived of true social connection, will seek out a sense of “sameness” in lieu of what he called “oneness” or a sacred and secure human experience of closeness. Author and activist bell hooks also explored these concepts as well as her concern for the “lovelessness of modern society” in her groundbreaking 1990’s book All About Love. These social concerns still ring true today, where efficiency and technology are king. Value is based on youth, body size, skin color, and the money in our bank accounts.

Dr. Sabrina Strings, a sociologist and professor at UC Irvine, wrote Fearing the Black Body in 2019, in which she outlines the origins of fatphobia as rooted in racism and white supremacist beliefs. The impact of racism directly led to the promotion of the “thin ideal” and its contribution to the diet industry, profiting off racist ideals that define goodness with thinness. A recent Atlantic article deemed that “America is in its Insecure Attachment Era”. We are getting farther and farther away from authentic attachment and closer to artificial forms of connection and communication. 

Through the lens of consumerist/capitalist culture we see the influence of big food, the diet industry (and it’s profiting off of fatphobia and self-loathing), as well and big pharma’s investment in our fear of weight gain and the related alienation that results. The increase in artificial intelligence, consumerism, and the emphasis on efficiency has led to a highly stressed and isolated living environment. Much like our attachment to family of origin, we also have an attachment to our society at large. This “socio-cultural attachment style” also affects our feelings of safety (or lack thereof) in the world. 

For many, our systemic attachment style is tremendously insecure — the world feels to be an unresponsive, unreliable, and threatening attachment figure. Weight stigma, systemic oppression, climate anxiety, income inequality, and racial prejudice, all contribute to our general sense of distrust and fear. Often, food consumption or the restriction of food serves to regulate us emotionally and mediate the threats that exist all around us. As many as 38% of adults report eating to self-soothe beyond physical fullness. And a 2022 study by Within Health found that 44% of Americans are currently on a diet, and 80% have been on some sort of diet in the past.

And the problem with disordered eating and young people is even more substantial. A recent CDC report showed that emergency room visits for teen girls with eating disorders doubled from 2019 to 2022. And research indicates that 22% of children and teens struggle with disordered eating. The epidemic of eating disorders is entirely tied to our epidemic of loneliness and disconnection. Our base is insecure and we’re desperate to seek shelter in our relationship with food. Seeking shelter can be a refuge or provide camouflage in a world with danger all around. The danger of being criticized, shamed, and marginalized.

Finding secure attachments in our communities and close relationships can directly impact and improve our relationship with food and our bodies. Food is essential, and in the best of situations, should be available and accessible. Being authentically attached to the people in our lives is the base for creating a lasting sense of emotional security, despite the destabilizing and disjointed world around us. Attachment and feelings of love are intrinsically linked to food. However, food isn’t the source of love but rather a semiconductor for the experience of love and connection. Building strong connections and finding safety with people can help us to weather the storm of disconnection and invite a greater sense of oneness in our lives.