WHAT’S IN A DAME : Harmful ‘fat talk’ is the soul’s junk food
Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2007
A quick multiple-choice bodyconsciousness quiz: 1. You could spend all day talking about A. Cellular biology.
B. Cell-phone technology.
C. Cellulite. 2. Your friend laments, “I have the biggest booty in the entire world !” Your response is A. “Um, yeah, now that you mention it, it is kind of huge.” B. “Mine’s perfect.” C. “No way, because I have the biggest booty in the entire world !” 3. The number 1760 is significant because A. That’s the year George III became King of Great Britain and Ireland.
B. That’s about the time Abu Dhabi was founded.
C. Duh, that’s the number of calories in a Big Mac, large fries, hot-fudge sundae and large Coke. And that is why my belly flab jiggles so.
If you answered C to any of the above, you could be a fat talker. And you certainly wouldn’t be alone, according to research.
“Fat talk,” a phrase coined by anthropologist Mimi Nichter, author of Fat Talk: What Girls and Their Parents Say about Dieting, refers to the way females criticize their bodies and how their peers feel compelled to respond with negative statements about their bodies to fit in.
An example is that scene from the movie Mean Girls in which all the pretty girls in the popular clique are looking in the mirror obsessing over imagined physical flaws: “God. My hips are huge !” says one. “Oh please. I hate my calves,” says another. “At least you guys can wear halters. I’ve got man shoulders,” says another. After whimpering, they all stare at a silent fourth girl, expecting her to chime in. “I have really bad breath in the morning ?” she eventually stammers.
While Nichter’s book focused on middle-school and highschool students, new research about college-age women shows fat talking is not just a childhood phenomenon. Adult women also feel a need to publicly put themselves down, according to a study by Appalachian State University psychology professors that was recently published in the online journal ScienceDirect. com.
Researchers offered a hypothetical story to 124 participants: Four female college students are studying together when three of them begin comparing their body imperfections. More than half the women who participated responded that the fourth woman would likely join the self-bashing. What’s more is that they thought the group would be more welcoming of a woman who fat talks than one who doesn’t.
In other words, by hating on ourselves, we think we’ll be accepted by others.
Psychology professor Denise Martz, one of the researchers, says this pressure to fat talk is harmful in that it can perpetuate unhealthy body images.
“We never break out of that cycle,” Martz was quoted as saying. “If there are women who have a positive body image, they never step up and vocalize that, so the norm never changes.” Interesting point. Maybe we should work on this. Next time we’re tempted to condemn ourselves, we could say positive things instead. Or perhaps we could just find some other subject to discuss.
Cellular biology, anyone ? Weigh in, e-mail: jchristman@arkansasonline. com What’s in a Dame is a weekly report from the woman ‘ hood.
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