How Couples Talk about Weight Loss Attempts: Gender Differences in Speech (2012)

Undergraduate: Cara Arizmendi

Faculty Advisor: Stephanie Zerwas
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Rising obesity stigma and pressure for women to not only appear attractive, but also maintain responsibility for health behaviors in the household are associated with how women experience weight management differently than men. Women are more likely to experience weight discrimination and make self-degrading comments about their bodies, while men are more likely to talk about their abilities, such as the amount of exercise they complete or how their physical fitness compares to their friends’ physical fitness. The present study conducted LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry Word Count) analyses of couples’ speech during semi-structured interviews about weight management attempts to determine if gender differences exist in word use when talking about weight loss attempts in the context of romantic relationships. The couples were interviewed separately by a female interviewer. Women’s speech contained a larger proportion of anger words, and there was a trend for sexual words, with women’s speech containing a larger proportion of sexual words. The discussion explores possible reasons for these differences including the sexualization of women’s bodies and a tendency for women to discuss weight in negative terms, while also acknowledging that having all female interviewers may have lowered men’s comfort level, while raising women’s comfort level. Future research using mixed-gender interviews and in home and clinical settings is suggested.