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Fat talk

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Fat talk describes the act of negatively commenting one’s bodily appearance.[1] It was named and first investigated by Mark Nichter and Nancy Vyckovic in 1994. Engaging in fat talk is highly common between women, especially peers and typically ends in a back-and-forth-conversations where commonly is denied that the other person is fat (“Ew, look at my thighs. They are so fat I will never be able to wear such trousers like you.” “Are you kidding? You don't look fat at all. I on the other hand have such fat belly.” “No, don’t be stupid. You are so thin, I am fat!”).[2] While originally observed in and related mostly to women, there is new research on fat talk in man, which suggests that men do as well engage in negative body talk, sometimes occurring in the form of “muscle talk”.[3]

Fat talk can have many consequences both if actively participated in or only heard. It is generally related to a broad range of body image constructs, including body dissatisfaction, self-objectification, perceived pressure to be thin, thin-ideal internalisation, appearance-based comparisons, body checking, body surveillance, and body shame.[4] Engaging in Fat Talk can also have an impact on mental health problems such as depression.[5]

Measurements

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The Fat Talk Scale

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The Fat Talk Scale (FTS) was developed by Paige MacDonald Clarke, Sarah K. Murnen, and Linda Smolak in September 2009. It consists of a nine-time one factor scale, based on 17 auditory scenarios in which a women talks to her female friend and a female college students had to determine whether they would have acted in the same way or not.

The FTS provides unique variance in topics like body shame and eating disorder symptoms. It was generally found that fat talk correlates more with objectification than the social uses.[6]

The Negative Body Talk Scale

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The Negative Body Talk scale, or NBT scale, measures women's tendency to engage in negatively valenced commentary about the weight and shape of their own bodies that has been developed by Renee Engeln Maddox, Rachel H. Salk, and Steven A. Miller and was published in April 2013.[7]

In the development of the Negative Body Talk scale two subscales were identified by using a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. One subscale, called the body concerns subscale investigates women's tendencies to make comments that articulate their worries over the size and/or shape of their bodies. The body comparison subscale on the other hand assesses the tendency of women to verbally mention unfavorable comparisons of their body with the bodies of other women.[7]

The Male Body Talk Scale

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The Male Body Talk scale or MBT scale, is a self-report scale that assesses the frequency with which men engage in negatively valenced body-related conversations with others. The scale was administered by Micheal R. Sladek, Renee Engeln, and Steven A. Miller and published in February 2014. Its principal purpose is to investigate how often men express themselves negatively concerning their own body or that of others. It entails items analyzed for psychometric properties. These items can either be interpreted as thoughts or as statements said aloud. If the items are interpreted as thoughts they more closely resemble measures of body dissatisfaction.[8]

Additionnally, two subscales of the Male Body Talk Scale were identified through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. These two subscales are the Muscle Talk subscale and the fat talk subscale, assessing men's tendency to express men's occupation with their degree of muscularity and not being muscular enough and their level of body fat and being overweight.[8]

Questionnaire

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The Fat Talk Questionnaire (FTQ) consists of 14 Items. It is a self-report questionnaire with a scale of 5, ranging from never to always. It is used to measure the frequency in which the participant engages in fat talk. High scores in the FTQ show great frequency of fat talk behavior. The questionnaire was created by Sarah Royal , Danielle E. MacDonald, Michelle M. Dionne and published in October 2012.[9]

The development of FTQ started with 63 items which were gathered by observing women who were asked about different body parts and bodyweight in general. In the final phase of development the questionnaire was broke down to 14 items, which were found to be the most accurate.[9]

Development

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Female role models such as dancers, fashion and artistic models have become significantly slimmer since 1945.[10] At the same time, average women in the United States were becoming larger, thus drifting further away from the ideal.[11] The current ideal body size in Western Societies is thin.[9] Because body dissatisfaction among women in the United States had become so common, researchers in the early 1980's introduced the term normative discontent.[12] Normative discontent is the idea that it is normal to be perpetually dissatisfied with what we have. To constantly hope for a better outcome in our lives and, regardless of any change for ‘the better’, continue to be malcontent. An insatiable drive to have it better.[13] To engage in fat talk is associated with an internalization of the idea of a thin ideal and body dissatisfaction[9] There is empirical evidence of societal pressure to participate in fat talk.[6] The term 'fat talk' was introduced in 1994 by the anthropologists Mark Nichter and Nancy Vuckovic.[14] The number of people who are dissatisfied with their body has grown more since then, until at least 2004.[15] Even though the research on fat talk is beginning to accumulate the research on this topic is still in its early phase.[9] A study from 2000 showed that girls in high school and college very frequently engage in fat talk.[9]

Correlates of Fat talk

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Fat talk can be related to various psychological states, both in women and men. On the negative side, fat talk is correlated with body dissatisfaction, self-objectification, drive for thinness, eating disorder pathologies and depression. On the positive side, it is correlated with body satisfaction and self-esteem. There are also some differences in how fat talk impacts our body satisfaction and self-esteem regarding the social environment of an individual, such as a family or peers.

Body dissatisfaction

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Fat talk is positively correlated with body dissatisfaction. Both women and men find themselves affected by engaging in fat talk and negative body talk more in general. They will start to disregard their bodies and think about them in a negative way, lowering their self-esteem. Furthermore, the more a person engages in fat talk, the more she is exposed to a possible risk of body dissatisfaction and the internalization of the thin ideal.[16]

Self-objectification

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Fat talk can cause self-objectification in a person affected by it. While engaging in fat talk, people tend to focus more on how their body looks rather than on what it can do. This is especially a concern for women, since men have a higher tendency to focus on the functionalities of their bodies.[16]

Drive for thinness

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Drive for thinness is positively correlated with fat talk. Because of the media showing mostly thin bodies to the population, there is a tendency for individuals to achieve this type of body, which is emphasised also by sociocultural pressure.[16]

Eating disorder pathologies

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Fat talk is highly associated with eating disorders, especially anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating. Patients with eating disorders are particularly concerned with their bodies and how they look, which leads to an increase in body checking, followed by fat talk. In the case of eating disorders, fat talk among family members is a big concern, since it is often correlated with the onset of an eating disorder.[16]

Fat talk between friends, family and siblings

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There are some differences between the impact fat talk has on a person, depending from whom it comes from, a friend, a member of family or more specifically a sibling. Between friends, fat talk was highly correlated with body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness and depression. It was found that in pairs of friends, individuals of higher BMI find their association between BMI and depressive symptoms reduced by fat talk. However, fat talk increases the correlation between BMI and depressive symptoms in individuals with lower BMI. In a family environment, fat talk might have a big impact on the onset of eating disorders. It can also set tensions between members of the family. Between siblings, both negative and positive body talk have been correlated with the quality of their relationship.[16]

Age

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Age is also related to the impact fat talk can have. Especially for women, the older an individual gets, the less they engaged in fat talk. It is related to the fact that women, when they age, tend to be less self-objectified by the society in general which allow them to appreciate the functionality of their bodies rather than how they are shaped.[16]

Theories

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Objectification Theory

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Fredrickson & Roberts (1997) Objectification Theory is used to explain why some mental issues such as eating disorders and mood disorders disproportionately affect women. The theory holds that women in Western cultures are socialized to see themselves as objects that are to be viewed and evaluated by others on the basis of their appereance. Through this process of socialization women learn that the attractiveness of their bodies is often equivalent to their general value in society.

Objectification is seen as the guiding framework of fat talk. In line with with objectification, fat talk can be seen as manifestation of one's body shame and anxiety. Fat talk is the direct result of body objectification.[16]

Self Perception Theory

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Daryl Bem's Self Perception theory holds that individuals decide how they are feeling based on their behavior, meaning individuals observe their actions and connect what attitudes or beliefs led to the performance.[17]

The consequence of fat talk is that if an individual speaks negatively about their body, they might start to form a negative attitude against their own body, even though they felt differently before about their body.[16]

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

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Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory proposes that we have an inner urge to hold behavior and attitudes in harmony and prevent dissonance.[16][18] When one individual says or does something that does not match with one's self-concept it causes a conflict, therefore an unpleasant psychological state. As a consequence the individual changes one self-concept to abolish the dissonance.[19]

When participating in fat talk, the people responding may do not feel bad about their body, but reply appropriately in order to fit with social conventions. One may not primarily have a negative body image but due to permanently being confronted by societal appearance ideals, her self-concept shifts so it exactly fits to how society objectifies one.[20]

Gender differences

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The differences in gender concerning fat talk can once again be related to the body standards communicated in the media.  While women are confronted with a thin body ideal they mostly only engage in fat talk, men on the other hand, having a very muscular idealized body image presented to them, have to face a major concern about their muscularity.  Therefore, male body talk consist of fat talk and muscle talk, which is more than a manifestation of mere muscle drive but a serious concern and impact to one’s body satisfaction and holds a risk for eating disorder, low self-esteem, (mental) health problems and the potential dangerous use of steroids. Except for the last aspect all of this risk factors also apply for woman, which in return are more vulnerable to the negative impact of body talk towards their own body image and health. [16]

Fat talk is generally more common among women as they usually experience a higher degree of body dissatisfaction and engage in fat talk as a social norm. This social norm expresses itself through the desire to belong to a social group which makes woman conform to it and hold body talk as an overall accepted part of female conversation. Whereas woman only experience the need of participating in negative fat talk they seem to expect more gain from this particular action. For women, fat talk represents a possibility for seeking social support from friends and also to relief their guilt after an unhealthy meal. That’s why fat talk in woman follows a social script which starts when one of them comments something negative about her body and the conversation partner denies her concern to make in turn a negative statement about her own body. Because of this conversation woman can reduce their anxiety from being objectified and also feel social support and acceptance. The denying part of the conversation helps them to feel better about their body and the self-related negative statement coming from their conversation partner is an opportunity to create a feeling of being united over having something in common or to maintain a group membership.[16]

In the case of men, body talk more often arises from social pressure than from a social norm. Men also hold a fear of not belonging to a social group but often their body concerns result more from the concern that they are not able to fulfil their peer’s standards, which exposes them to a social pressure that also gets reinforced over the media standards and unrealistic role models. Therefore, men are not so much concerned about their BMI as woman but the pressure of working out. Body talk in men moreover follows a different script. Whereas women engage in fat talk in a situation unspecific manner, men fat talk is more common in a context that is related to body image as for example the gym. Furthermore, men also sometimes engage in positive body talk with their peers and the conversation is not bonded to a social script. Frequently males rather agree on their peers concern then deny them but also give constructive critic for improvement. Interestingly there is a cultural difference observable among men but not women. As it seems men belonging to a minority experience more body dissatisfaction and hold a more critical view on their body because their appearance gives them an alternative to express power. In addition, gay men are more tempted to engage in fat talk due to their higher concern about being stigmatized.[16][21]

Media

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Media has a large influence on children and teenagers nowadays due to its growing presence in people’s everyday lives. The television, press, movies, and other kinds of media show a distorted version of reality, which children and teenagers cannot differentiate from real life.[22] 93% of female characters on television are portrayed by thin actresses. 12% of TV characters are shown to diet.[23]

Certain societal standards are set through the media concerning body ideals, body size, consumption of food, gender roles, et cetera. This means that especially young people are vulnerable to the messages the media projects, such as fat talk. It was shown that kids as young as 6 years old already have the desire to be thin. People are often unaware that the mass media can be the prime source for dissatisfaction with one’s body and even eating disorders.[24]

Cross sectional studies have shown that the average amount young women spent looking at media that emphasized people’s appearance, correlates with body dissatisfaction and fat talk.[25]

One is even more vulnerable to the effects of media if they were already unhappy with their body, if they have internalized the thin body ideal, and if they have a weak support system from friends and family. People who have a high internalization of the thin ideal tend to have a higher body dissatisfaction as well and thus frequently resort to fat talk.[26] A higher likelihood of fat talk also arises through making many upward comparisons with people in the media who meet the societal thin ideals.[19]

References

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  1. ^ Young, Katharine; Sault, Nicole (1996). "Many Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations". The Journal of American Folklore. 109 (433): 337. doi:10.2307/541540. ISSN 0021-8715.
  2. ^ Salk, Rachel H.; Engeln-Maddox, Renee (2011-3). ""If You're Fat, Then I'm Humongous!": Frequency, Content, and Impact of Fat Talk Among College Women". Psychology of Women Quarterly. 35 (1): 18–28. doi:10.1177/0361684310384107. ISSN 0361-6843. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Lin, Linda; Flynn, Mark; Roberge, Ashley (2019-01-22). "Hearing vs. engaging in negative body talk: an examination of adult men". Eating Disorders: 1–12. doi:10.1080/10640266.2018.1560851. ISSN 1064-0266.
  4. ^ Mills, Jacqueline; Mort, Olivia; Trawley, Steven (2019-06). "The impact of different responses to fat talk on body image and socioemotional outcomes". Body Image. 29: 149–155. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2019.03.009. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. ^ Arroyo, Analisa; Harwood, Jake (2012-05). "Exploring the Causes and Consequences of Engaging in Fat Talk". Journal of Applied Communication Research. 40 (2): 167–187. doi:10.1080/00909882.2012.654500. ISSN 0090-9882. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ a b Clarke, Murnen, Smolak, Paige MacDonald, Sarah K., Linda (September 2009). "Development and psychometric evaluation of a quantitative measure of fat talk" (PDF). ELSEVIER: 7.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ a b Engeln-Maddox, R., Salk, R., & Miller, S. (2012). Assessing women’s negative commentary on their own bodies : A psychometric investigation of the negative body talk scale. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 36(2), 162-178. doi:10.1177/0361684312441593
  8. ^ a b Sladek, M., Engeln, R., & Miller, S. (2014). Development and validation of the male body talk scale: A psychometric investigation. Body Image, 11(3), 233-44. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2014.02.005
  9. ^ a b c d e f Royal, Mac Donald, Dionne, Sarah, Danielle E., Michelle M. (October 2012). "Development and validation of the Fat Talk Questionnaire" (PDF). ELSEVIER.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ O'Dea, Jennifer; Abraham, Suzanne (1995-03). "Should body-mass index be used in young adolescents?". The Lancet. 345 (8950): 657. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(95)90563-4. ISSN 0140-6736. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ Garner, David M.; Garfinkel, Paul E.; Schwartz, Donald; Thompson, Michael (1980-10). "Cultural Expectations of Thinness in Women". Psychological Reports. 47 (2): 483–491. doi:10.2466/pr0.1980.47.2.483. ISSN 0033-2941. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ Striegel-Moore, R. H.; Silberstein, L. R.; Rodin, J. (1986). "Risk Factors for Bulimia". PsycEXTRA Dataset. Retrieved 2019-05-13.
  13. ^ "Normative Discontent". SOCIALMEGAPHONE. 2011-05-02. Retrieved 2019-05-13.
  14. ^ Nichter, Mark; Vuckovic, Nancy (1994-12). "Agenda for an anthropology of pharmaceutical practice". Social Science & Medicine. 39 (11): 1509–1525. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(94)90003-5. ISSN 0277-9536. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ Curran, Joseph (2003-10). "Body image: a handbook of theory, research and clinical practiceBody image: a handbook of theory, research and clinical practice Cash Thomas F Pruzinsky Thomas Guilford Press £41.95 (hardback) 5361 57230777 31572307773". Mental Health Practice. 7 (2): 27–28. doi:10.7748/mhp.7.2.27.s21. ISSN 1465-8720. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Shannon, Amy; Mills, Jennifer S. (2015-09). "Correlates, causes, and consequences of fat talk: A review". Body Image. 15: 158–172. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2015.09.003. ISSN 1740-1445. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Bem, Daryl J. (1967). "Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena". Psychological Review. 74 (3): 183–200. doi:10.1037/h0024835. ISSN 1939-1471.
  18. ^ "Cognitive Dissonance Theory | Simply Psychology". www.simplypsychology.org. Retrieved 2019-05-13.
  19. ^ a b Shannon, Amy; Mills, Jennifer S. (2015-09). "Correlates, causes, and consequences of fat talk: A review". Body Image. 15: 158–172. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2015.09.003. ISSN 1740-1445. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ^ Tucker, Katheryn; Martz, Denise; Curtin, Lisa; Bazzini, Doris (2007). "Examining "fat talk" experimentally in a female dyad: Do women feel pressured to self-derogate about body image?". PsycEXTRA Dataset. Retrieved 2019-05-13.
  21. ^ Sladek, Michael R.; Engeln, Renee; Miller, Steven A. (2014-06). "Development and validation of the Male Body Talk Scale: A psychometric investigation". Body Image. 11 (3): 233–244. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2014.02.005. ISSN 1740-1445. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  22. ^ López-Guimerà, Gemma; Levine, Michael P.; Sánchez-carracedo, David; Fauquet, Jordi (2010-11-30). "Influence of Mass Media on Body Image and Eating Disordered Attitudes and Behaviors in Females: A Review of Effects and Processes". Media Psychology. 13 (4): 387–416. doi:10.1080/15213269.2010.525737. ISSN 1521-3269.
  23. ^ Shannon, Amy; Mills, Jennifer S. (2015-09). "Correlates, causes, and consequences of fat talk: A review". Body Image. 15: 158–172. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2015.09.003. ISSN 1740-1445. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ López-Guimerà, Gemma; Levine, Michael P.; Sánchez-carracedo, David; Fauquet, Jordi (2010-11-30). "Influence of Mass Media on Body Image and Eating Disordered Attitudes and Behaviors in Females: A Review of Effects and Processes". Media Psychology. 13 (4): 387–416. doi:10.1080/15213269.2010.525737. ISSN 1521-3269.
  25. ^ López-Guimerà, Gemma; Levine, Michael P.; Sánchez-carracedo, David; Fauquet, Jordi (2010-11-30). "Influence of Mass Media on Body Image and Eating Disordered Attitudes and Behaviors in Females: A Review of Effects and Processes". Media Psychology. 13 (4): 387–416. doi:10.1080/15213269.2010.525737. ISSN 1521-3269.
  26. ^ López-Guimerà, Gemma; Levine, Michael P.; Sánchez-carracedo, David; Fauquet, Jordi (2010-11-30). "Influence of Mass Media on Body Image and Eating Disordered Attitudes and Behaviors in Females: A Review of Effects and Processes". Media Psychology. 13 (4): 387–416. doi:10.1080/15213269.2010.525737. ISSN 1521-3269.
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