"Anthropologist Mimi Nichter spent three years interviewing middle school and high school girls - lower-middle to middle class, white, black, and Latina - about their feelings concerning appearance, their eating habits, and dieting. In Fat Talk, she tells us what the girls told her, and explores the influence of peers, family, and the media on girls' sense of self. Letting girls speak for themselves, she gives us the human side of survey statistics.".

"Fat Talk takes the reader into the lives of girls as daughters, providing insights into how parents talk to their teenagers about their changing bodies. Moving beyond negative stereotype of mother-daughter relationships, Nichter examines the issues and struggles that mothers face in bringing up their daughters, particularly in relation to body image, and considers how they can help their daughters move beyond rigid and stereotyped images of ideal beauty."--BOOK JACKET.