Connecting theory to fat talk: Body dissatisfaction mediates the relationships between weight discrepancy, upward comparison, body surveillance, and fat talk

•Utilized self-discrepancy, social comparison, and objectification theory to predict fat talk.•Body dissatisfaction mediated the relationship between weight discrepancy and fat talk.•Body dissatisfaction mediated the relationship between upward comparison and fat talk.•Body dissatisfaction mediated the relationship between body surveillance and fat talk.•The size of each indirect effect was medium in magnitude.

The fat talk literature is meager in terms of offering theoretical explanations for women's self-disparaging communication. The research presented here sought to establish a relationship between three prominent body image theories – self-discrepancy theory, social comparison theory, and objectification theory – and fat talk by proposing body dissatisfaction as a potential mediating mechanism. Young adult women (N = 201) completed an online questionnaire. As predicted, results revealed that body dissatisfaction significantly mediated the relationships between weight discrepancy, upward comparison, body surveillance and fat talk. Effect size estimates indicated that the size of each indirect effect was medium in magnitude.