Cribbing about being fat/old indicates negative body image
Friday, February 22nd, 2013
Just as talking about being fat points to body dissatisfaction, talking about being old would imply one’s negative self-image, new research has shown.
Body dissatisfaction is known to be correlated with, and predictive of, physical and mental health problems including binge eating, emotional eating, stress, low self-esteem, depression, and use of unhealthy weight control behaviours.
In order to see if the impact of ”fat talk” and other aspects of body image such as ageing, ”old talk”, was the same throughout women”s lives, researchers from Trinity University and University of the West of England surveyed almost 1000 women, whose ages ranged from 18 to 87.
The results showed that both ”fat talk” and ”old talk” occurred throughout women”s lives, but in general women talked less about age and getting older than they did about their concerns with weight. ”Fat talk” appeared to be a younger woman”s topic and became less frequent with age, while ”old talk” increased.