Why You Care So Much What People Think: The Fawn Response

One of the most common threads I see among people working on their relationship with food and body image is a deep, exhausting concern with how they are perceived.

It can sound like:

• I don’t want people to think I’m letting myself go.
• I feel like everyone notices when I eat more than them.
• I know no one is actually watching, but I still feel watched.

At the surface, this looks like self-consciousness or insecurity, but underneath it’s something deeper and more physiological. It’s not just about liking yourself more. It’s about how the nervous system interprets belonging, approval, and safety.

That same system that makes you second-guess what your body looks like in photos or what people think of what’s on your plate is also the one that makes you overexplain yourself in an email or replay a conversation in your head after you leave. It’s the same wiring—different context.

A Client Example

A client recently shared that she’d reconnected with a distant cousin over email and found herself obsessing over every word she wrote. She reread messages for tone, worried her humor wouldn’t translate exactly right, and felt like she needed to apologize for any perceived shortcomings. When they got together for lunch, she worried that her cousin wouldn't want to stay in touch when she saw that my client lived in a bigger body. She fretted over her food choices -- she was working on food freedom but what if her cousin thought she was being "too indulgent"? What if she got parsley stuck in her teeth and seemed uncouth? She found herself defaulting to ordering the most "acceptable" thing on the menu to be safe.

In another example, she went to the doctor to talk about some symptoms she's been having that trouble her. She noticed herself emphasizing the good days and minimizing the bad. (She didn’t want to seem dramatic.) Later she realized this had led the doctor to assume she was doing better than she actually was. (Later, when she realized she needed to clarify this, she phoned the office staff and again agonized over how to phrase it so she wouldn’t seem annoying or difficult.)

She knew these reactions were disproportionate. She told me, “Rationally, I know I’m not doing anything wrong. But it feels unbearable to think they might find me irritating.”

This is what happens when approval has been tied to safety. It’s not a personality flaw—it’s a nervous system reflex.

The Nervous System’s Role in Caring What People Think

When the body perceives a threat, it shifts into protection mode. For some people, that means becoming combative or running away (fight or flight). For others, it means fawning—managing impressions to avoid rejection or conflict.

People who fawn don’t consciously choose to do it. Their system automatically moves toward compliance, reassurance, and performance. It’s about keeping everyone "unbothered" so that no one turns against you or leaves you behind.

If you grew up in an environment where affection, validation, or calm depended on being good, pleasing, or impressive, your body learned that approval equals connection. Disapproval equals danger. The adult version of this looks like hyper-awareness of how you come across, even to strangers.

You notice tone shifts, facial expressions, delayed replies. You try to control how others perceive you through accuracy, niceness, or self-editing. And because the nervous system treats social disapproval as threat, these moments flood your body with activation.

The same mechanism that makes you send an unnecessary apology email is the one that makes you panic about weight gain or food choices. Food and body size are top-tier social values in our culture, so this is a place we will often seek acceptability.

The Food and Body Version of the Same Pattern

When someone grows up linking worth to performance or appearance, the body becomes part of the performance. Being “likable” or “disciplined” turns into being thin, controlled, or “good” with food.

The nervous system learns that to belong, you must manage yourself. So you manage appetite, shape, and perception the same way you manage your tone or your emails. You overcorrect. You anticipate criticism before it happens.

Many people who struggle with binge eating, restriction, or chronic body monitoring are not vain. They are vigilant. They are running the same pattern of relational survival through the lens of food.

They fear being judged for eating dessert at a restaurant. They preemptively comment on their weight gain before anyone else can. They try to appear “normal” with food even when their body is hungry. It’s the same nervous system trying to stay safe through social control.

Why Logic Doesn’t Fix It

People who care deeply about others’ opinions are usually very self-aware. They’ll say, “I know nobody’s watching me eat,” or “I know my body doesn’t define me,” and yet their body doesn’t relax. That’s because logic happens after the nervous system has already fired.

You can’t think your way out of a survival response. You have to teach the body that disapproval or misunderstanding is not a threat.

What’s Actually Happening

The client I mentioned wasn’t struggling because of her cousin or her doctor. She was struggling because her nervous system equated “being wrong” or "having needs" or even "being noticed" with “being unsafe.” Her need to correct herself wasn’t about information—it was about regulation. She needed to relieve the internal pressure of shame and restore the sense of connection.

This is exactly what happens when someone eats past fullness and immediately plans how to “fix it,” or when they wake up the next morning and feel consumed with guilt. The repair impulse—fix, compensate, control—isn’t about logic. It’s about reestablishing safety in the body after a perceived rupture.

When safety depends on approval, the body’s first move after discomfort is appeasement. This is a version of the fawn response.

Why Some People Go to Extremes

Everyone cares what people think to some degree. We’re social animals; belonging matters. The difference is in degree and nervous system sensitivity.

When belonging in childhood was conditional—when love or peace depended on performance, compliance, or thinness—the body internalizes the rule: stay likable to stay safe.

If unpredictability was common (affection one moment, criticism the next), you learn to monitor every signal. If you were praised for achievement or discipline, you learn that excellence buys connection. If you were mocked for mistakes, you learn to preempt them.

Some people are also temperamentally wired for social sensitivity. They notice tone, mood, microexpressions—information that helped them stay connected in unsafe systems but now keeps them in a loop of vigilance.

Add to that a culture that reinforces appearance as social currency, and you get a perfect storm: a nervous system that reads body changes or appetite as potential rejection.

How to Start Rebalancing

The work isn’t to stop caring what people think. It’s to build more safety so that caring doesn’t completely overrule self, mood, or behavior.

1. Name the pattern as protection.
   When you notice yourself worrying about what others think—of your body, your food, your words—acknowledge it as a protective reflex. “My body thinks I’m in danger.” Naming it interrupts shame and invites curiosity.
2. Orient back to reality.
   Look around. Where are you? Who is actually here? Is the threat real or remembered? Many nervous systems are reacting to ghosts of the past rather than the person in front of them.
3. Separate responsibility from appeasement.
   In the same way you might ask, “Do I need to correct this email, or am I just uncomfortable?” you can ask, “Do I actually need to restrict right now, or am I just trying to calm anxiety?” This question helps you move from reaction to choice.
4. Practice small exposures to being misunderstood.
   Let an email sit unsent for a bit. Eat without explaining your food choices. Post the picture where you look like yourself, not your best angle. Each time you survive perceived judgment, your body learns that connection doesn’t disappear.
5. Rebuild safety around hunger and fullness.
   When eating becomes a negotiation with imagined critics, your body never feels safe. Practicing presence—eating slowly, noticing sensations, letting food be just food—helps the nervous system realize that approval isn’t required for nourishment.
6. Map the internal parts that activate.
   There’s usually a younger self who fears being wrong, a protector who manages image, and a wise observer who knows none of it is truly dangerous. The goal isn’t to silence them, but to let the wise one lead.

Gradual Shift

At first, this work feels uncomfortable. You’ll still want to fix, clarify, or apologize. You’ll still care what others think. But with repetition, the charge usually decreases. You’ll start to recognize the difference between wanting to be understood and needing to be.

You’ll begin to notice hunger without the overlay of “what will they think if I eat more?” You’ll start to sense the moment your nervous system flares and learn to pause rather than perform.

This is what healing looks like in real time—not the absence of self-consciousness, but the presence of self-trust.

What Safety Begins to Feel Like

Again, safety doesn't mean you don't care, but it means you care in proportion. You can be misunderstood and still okay. You can be seen eating dessert and still connected. You can notice someone’s silence and not automatically assume you’ve done something wrong.

Over time, the nervous system learns that you don’t have to manage how others see you to stay safe. You just have to stay with yourself and challenge the voice that says: fawn or else! Developing a new voice (this can be understood as a new "part," a regulated state of the nervous system, a "wise mind," and other versions of the same idea) is a new branch of safety that we must prove out to be safe by experiencing it.