Body Talk and Body Ideals Among Adolescent Boys and Girls: A Mixed-Gender Focus Group Study

This study explores how body ideals are discussed among adolescent boys and girls in 5 mixed-gender focus groups (n = 37). The ways in which boys and girls talk about bodies differed clearly within the focus group conversations as well as in the everyday situations described in the interviews. The boys were more concrete in their description of ideal bodies in the focus groups but reported less engagement in everyday body talk. The study demonstrates that self-derogating fat talk is normative in the meaning easy to fall into but not normative in the meaning approved of: Fat talk is more or less required in some situations but not really appreciated. Both girls and boys agreed on this description of fat talk among girls. They also agreed that fat talk rarely occurred among boys. It was a general consensus that body issues are more sensitive and problematic for girls than for boys.