14 DAY TRIAL // There's no way we can witness a women chatting without the subject to divert towards how much they got fat or slimmed, the last diet they heard about, the best gym in the city and so on.
A new research discovered that the "fat talk", occurring between women of all ages, is a socially mandatory conversation. "We have found in our research that both male and female college students know the norm of fat talk-that females are supposed to say negative things about their bodies in a group of females engaging in fat talk," said study co-author Denise Martz of Appalachian State University.
The research team presented to 124 male and female college students a scene of three women engaging in fat talk. The subjects were put to guess how a fourth female would respond to the conversation. 40 % of male subjects and 51 % of female subjects thought that the fourth female would self-degrade her body. "Because women feel pressured to follow the fat talk norm, they are more likely to engage in fat talk with other females. Hence, women normalize their own body dissatisfaction with one another," said Martz.
"If there are women out there who feel neutrally or even positively about their bodies, I bet we never hear this from them for fear of social sanction and rejection," she said.
With the increasing obesity rates in the US, more and more women distance their bodies from the beauty ideal publicized in the media, and thus more women will face fat talk. "Females like to support one another and fat talk elicits support. An example would be one saying, 'It's like, I'm so fat today,' and another would respond, 'No, you are not fat, you look great in those pants.'"
Fat talk also allows females to appear modest, a prized quality in a culture that shuns egotism. We tend to dislike arrogance and especially dislike it in women ('bitches')", Martz explained. "Women are perceived as OK if they fat talk and acknowledge that their bodies are not perfect but they are working on it."
"Fat talk" could be specific to wealthier countries where there's unlimited access to food resources. "In nations where famine rules, people often regard heavier bodies as a sign of good fortune and status. In the United States some people show their social status by their ability to be thin, which translates into meaning they are disciplined in their food intake and exercise," said Martz.
"I wish women would worry less about their bodies-while still taking good care of their health through behaviors like stress management, regular exercise and healthful eating-and spend more time learning, helping, educating, leading, solving problems, rising to positions of influence and contributing to society in general," Martz said.