The Effect of Race on Perceptions of Fat Talk among College Women

Fat talk is a normative style of communication where primarily girls and women say negative things about their bodies as a part of social conversation. The majority of fat talk research has employed Caucasian participants and racially unspecified targets in vignette-based studies, and there is a notable absence of how fat talk may differ as a function of race. In this study, Caucasian participants were randomly assigned to read one of three vignettes describing a fat talk situation among female college students. The race of a primary target was manipulated and identified as Caucasian, African American, or not specified using a between-subjects design. Participants were asked to rate their perceptions of fat talk as a normative response for the female target and the protagonist’s likeability. The results supported the hypothesis that fat talk is perceived as more normative among a Caucasian than an African Americans target in a vignette. No differences were found between conditions on perceptions of likeability. The results suggest that previous vignette-based fat talk studies likely apply to perceptions of Caucasian female targets as when race was not specified, Caucasian college participants assumed the target was Caucasian.