What ‘Fat Talk’ Does For Your Body Image
Posted by Gail | Filed under Psychology
Ever said these things:
- “These jeans make me look fat!”
- “I wish I had your thighs.”
- “My diet starts tomorrow!”
Fat talking — the tendency to make negative comments about our bodies – seems to be a staple of female culture. A 2011 study published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly found that 93% of women engage in fat talk.
Anthopologist Mimi Nichter stumbled onto fat talk while she was studying teen girls. During a series of focus groups, she noticed a familiar ritual: One girl would say, “I feel so fat,” and another would respond with, “You’re not fat!” The exchange was a normal part of daily life; the girls repeated it over and over throughout the day.
So Nichter coined the term “fat talk” and started listening for it. Turns out it’s everywhere. Thing is most women who fat talk aren’t fat. They’re a normal, healthy weight.
Body dissatisfaction is common among women, and researchers believe that Fat talk is a way for women to bond. A woman who responds that she’s confident and satisfied with her body risks being seen as arrogant.
Imagine. You’re arrogant because you’re not dissing yourself. You’re arrogant because you’re happy with who you are. What a load of rubbish.
An interesting insight of Mimi Nichter’s research is that black girls escape the weight obsession and the “fat talk” that is so pervasive among white girls. The black girls she talked with were much more satisfied with their bodies. For them, beauty was a matter of projecting attitude (“’tude”) and moving with confidence and style.
Put the words “fat” and “diet” into google and you’ll get 227 million responses in 30 seconds. That’s how much we obsess about weight.
Before you start jumping up and down and yelling about the health risks of being fat, there is strong research showing fat people can be healthy and fit. Data from a cross-sectional sample of 5440 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey, found that half of overweight adults and almost one-third of obese adults were metabolically healthy. So, it is possible to be fat and fit if you have a healthy lifestyle: you’re physically active, eat a nutrient dense diet, and get enough sleep.
Now all we have to do is get over our obsession with skinny and put a muzzle on the fat talk. Or maybe it’s time to celebrate health in whatever shape it comes instead of treating larger bodies like some sort of personal short-coming.