ERIC Number: EJ912401
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-Mar
Pages: 22
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0743-5584
EISSN: N/A
"Guys, She's Humongous!": Gender and Weight-Based Teasing in Adolescence
Taylor, Nicole L.
Journal of Adolescent Research, v26 n2 p178-199 Mar 2011
Ethnographic research, including individual interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, was conducted to examine how adolescents defined and negotiated the boundaries between normal/acceptable weight and overweight through direct and indirect teasing. In particular, this article focuses on gender differences in weight-based teasing and in the ways boys and girls responded to being teased within the high school context. Findings suggest that girls' body fat was more closely monitored and criticized than boys' by both male and female peers. Boys and girls of all sizes and all social groups, including teens who were overweight, were critical of people who displayed body fat. This article argues that by engaging in "othering" discourses of their peers' body fat, adolescents, regardless of their size, were able to discursively construct themselves as "normal" in comparison. In doing so, they negotiated a higher social rank for themselves and distanced themselves from the reality of everyday fatness.
Descriptors: Obesity, Females, Participant Observation, Focus Groups, Ethnography, Adolescents, Gender Differences, Males, Gender Issues, Bullying, Peer Relationship, Interviews, Body Weight, Social Influences, Social Attitudes, Social Status, Body Composition, High School Students, White Students, Hispanic American Students, Mexican Americans
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A