“I just don’t want to be fat!”: body talk, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorder symptoms in mother–adolescent girl dyads

Purpose Mothers serve as a primary socializing figure among adolescent girls at a time when they are at high risk of body image concerns and disordered eating behavior, and this influence may vary by weight status. Body talk may be one mechanisms of influence in this relationship. The current study utilized an observational measure of body talk to investigate the relationship between adolescent girls’ body talk with mothers, eating disorder symptoms, and body dissatisfaction. Methods Participants included 100 mother–daughter dyads who completed self-report measures of body dissatisfaction and eating behavior and engaged in a 10-min discussion about the daughter’s body image. Results Results indicated that the relationship between both positive and negative body talk and body dissatisfaction varied by weight status. For healthy/underweight adolescents, negative body talk is related to higher body dissatisfaction ( b = 0.04, SE 0.01, p