Fat talk is predicted by body dissatisfaction and social comparison with no interaction effect: Evidence from two replication studies

Pollet, Thomas, Dawson, Sarah, Tovée, Martin J., Cornelissen, Piers and Cornelissen, Katri (2021) Fat talk is predicted by body dissatisfaction and social comparison with no interaction effect: Evidence from two replication studies. Body Image, 38. pp. 317-324. ISSN 1740-1445

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Abstract

Verbal denigration of personal body size and shape (“fat talk”) is correlated with, and can have a causal influence on body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. What is less clear is who is most likely to fat talk. To address this, Corning and Gondoli (2012) conducted a study confirming that a woman's body dissatisfaction directly predicted their fat talk. But this effect was scaled so that the likelihood of engaging in fat talk intensified if she had a stronger tendency to socially compare: the relationship was multiplicative. Here, we carried out two replications of Corning and Gondoli's (2012) study, the first with 189 UK participants and the second with 371 US participants. We found that multiple regression models predicting fat talk showed additive, but not multiplicative relationships. A robust Bayesian meta-analysis combining the results of our two studies with the results of the original study confirmed this. In conclusion, these studies show an additive relationship between fat talk and social comparison on fat talk.

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