The first time I remember hearing “fat talk” was during a rehearsal break for a summer musical. I was 11, in that liminal summer between elementary and middle school, between childhood and adolescence, and my friends and I were chatting with a couple of teenage counselors.
This incident stuck with me for several reasons. First, it confirmed what I’d suspected for years: that thin is the best thing to be. But it also showed that speaking negatively about your body could be a foundation for friendship.
Some research has supported this idea, showing that when female friends criticize their bodies, it harms their mental health but bolsters their relationships. But in recent years, other research has called that notion into doubt, raising questions about the complex ways in which women relate to their own bodies and each other.
Body dissatisfaction is undiscriminating among American women: Some surveys suggest that the majority of U.S. women are unhappy with their body and want to change it. Diet culture deserves much of the blame for pervasive negative body talk, but interpersonal relationships also play a role, which makes it both unsurprising and concerning that up to 93 percent of young adult women have engaged in “fat talk” with their friends, according to one study.
How these conversations look varies from friendship to friendship, but they tend to hit certain beats: disgust over one’s diet and exercise choices, frustration over lack of change and cruel assessments of one’s own body.
For women in my generation, ’90s culture reinforced this toxic mind-set — millennials have been steeped in a societal desire to be thin at all costs. Gen Z, meanwhile, has been celebrated for bringing body positivity to the mainstream. But while it’s true that outright hatred of one’s own body is no longer cool, the bold proclamations made across TikTok and other social platforms have done little to dismantle larger societal pressures to be thin, according to experts.
That doesn’t bode well for anyone. Again and again, negative body talk among friends has been linked to poor mental health outcomes. “Co-rumination,” as it’s dubbed by researchers, is associated with not only disordered eating and increased levels of body dissatisfaction, but also stress, anxiety and depressive symptoms. (In fact, brain imaging shows that when we talk poorly about our bodies, the part of our brain connected with fear and survival lights up.)
On the other hand, co-rumination has also been linked to increased friendship quality, relationship satisfaction and social support. The reason for this likely lies in social penetration theory, which says that when one person discloses something intimate, their counterpart is expected to reciprocate; when they do, this improves closeness and trust, and generally makes people like one another more.
In a December 2020 study, however, researchers found a link between co-rumination and body dissatisfaction, just as previous research had, but no significant relationship between co-rumination and relationship quality. Instead, they observed that women were merely enacting “generic scripts around fat talk,” engaging in body bashing that felt rote and lacked true vulnerability.
Which raises the question: Why have these conversations at all? The answer, of course, is complicated, but social factors undeniably play a role. A multitude of studies have found that women feel pressure to participate in negative body talk with their friends, and that fat talk itself is actually contagious. As Los Angeles-based therapist Kendra Delahooke explains, “Thanks to the power of mirror neurons, the words of our friends can be literally contagious. Our brains are wired to agree.”
Critical body talk, then, begins to feel like the price of admission for being a woman in America: There’s social and societal pressure to perform a specific type of femininity, to hate our bodies in specific ways, and so women read these scripts to one another. Unfortunately, while those empty words do little to foster connection, they’re still remarkably effective at creating unhappiness.
The regrettable reality is that many women have difficult thoughts and feelings about their own bodies, and pretending they don’t exist is not a solution. Fortunately, there are ways friends can talk about these things and leave the conversation feeling better, not worse. Here are expert tips for how to do so.
Name it
Critical body thoughts are often automatic, and as the 2020 study showed, women can slip into fat talk scripts reflexively. By noticing and naming these types of conversations, you can draw a line between body criticism and the more grounded elements of your friendship and life.
“Little insidious comments that weave negative body self-talk into conversation can influence subconscious thinking patterns,” says Rachel Kazez, a therapist in Chicago. “When a friend says, ‘I shouldn’t eat X, I look so Y,’ you can say in your head, ‘That’s negative body self-talk.’ ”
Set boundaries
Simply letting a friend know that you’re trying to avoid critical body talk can be very helpful, according to Kazez, and especially in friendships where this type of talk happens frequently. “Share your process,” she advises. “Say something like, ‘I’m working on not talking negatively about my body. Could we avoid that topic?’”
Ask for consent
It’s also important to be mindful of others’ boundaries, which may mean asking for consent before you start any sort of body-related talk. “What often makes the difference is if both friends have agreed to a dialogue,” says Erin Engle, a psychologist and clinical director of Columbia University Psychiatry Specialty Services. “A friend can say something like, ‘I’m struggling with my body image today. Are you open to talking about it with me?’ ”
Try to go deeper
Where surface-level body criticism only hurts, emotion-based conversations can leave women feeling supported and seen. “The next time your friend makes a negative comment, instead of agreeing or talking about your own body, choose to be vulnerable and name a feeling,” Delahooke says. For example, instead of declaring you’re fat, you could say you feel anxious about dating because you believe people will judge a certain body part.
Strengthen your relationships in other areas
Another interesting finding of the study was that strong friendships were linked to more body satisfaction. By doing things that strengthen your friendships and have nothing to do with your physical appearance, you may get a body image boost and have less of an urge to have these conversations at all.
