What Did She Just Say?: Development Of Vignettes That Effectively Manipulate Women's Fat Talk In The Context Of Heterosexual Relationships

“Fat talk” is defined as a negative critique of one’s physical appearance with friends and family. There is limited research on fat talk in the context of romantic relationships; only two studies have examined men’s perceptions of women engaging in fat talk using vignettes. The present study developed and validated vignettes capable of manipulating various levels of fat talk by a heterosexual woman with her male partner in the context of a committed romantic relationship. A 2 (Gender: male or female) X 3 (Vignette: 1) Excessive fat talk 2) Minimal fat talk or 3) Self-accepting body talk between-subjects design was used to examine men’s and women’s perceptions of a target woman’s 1) likeability, 2) perceived body size (Pulvers, 2004, rating scale), and 3) perceived amount of fat talk using the Fat Talk Questionnaire (FTQ; Royal, MacDonald, & Dionne, 2013). Findings suggest that these vignettes are a valid method of manipulating fat talk for use in future research regarding fat talk within heterosexual relationships. When the target woman engaged in excessive fat talk, she was seen as less likeable and participants perceived her body size to be greater – indicating that minimal levels of fat talk may be normative.