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Fat-talk is new pillow talk

They may be fat. But they live with no feelings of guilt, anxiety or hostility. This was revealed in a survey conducted by LSR College.

Published on: May 20, 2006, 11:37:00 IST
None | By , New Delhi
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They may be fat. But they live with no feelings of guilt, anxiety or hostility. This was revealed in a survey conducted by LSR College. Dr Kanika Khandelwal, a lecturer with LSR's Psychology Department said, “We conducted a study on the effect of 'fat-talk' ,or social pressure to be thin.

"We found that peer pressure to be thin promotes body dissatisfaction, but this factor has no negative effect.” Eighty students were randomly assigned a scenario — where a thin, attractive student complained about how fat she felt and voiced intentions to lose weight or a control condition.

A questionnaire was handed over these students. Five minutes later, another talk was conducted where a student talked about neutral topics like weather and movies.

After this talk ended, a questionnaire was handed out students. The results showed that the students who had been exposed to the ‘fat-talk’ were greatly dissatisfied, but there were no feelings of guilt, anxiety or hostility.

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