ON Tuesday, in the wake of an online petition signed by thousands of people, Facebook announced that it was removing “feeling fat” from its list of status update emoticons. The petition argued that the offending emoticon, with its chubby cheeks and double chin, reinforced negative body images, and Facebook seemed to agree.

Is it really such a big deal if you tell everyone how fat you feel? After all, a simple “I’m so fat!” can result in a chorus of empathetic voices, saying, “Me, too!” or “You’re beautiful just the way you are!” And that will help you feel better, and help others feel better, too — right?

Wrong. As someone who studies this type of public body self-disparagement, known as “fat talk,” I can say that it probably will make you feel worse. And it may drag down other people with you.

Conversational shaming of the body has become practically a ritual of womanhood (though men also engage in it). In a survey that a colleague and I reported in 2011 in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, we found that more than 90 percent of college women reported engaging in fat talk — despite the fact that only 9 percent were actually overweight. In another survey, which we published in December in the Journal of Health Psychology, we canvassed thousands of women ranging in age from 16 to 70. Contrary to the stereotype of fat talk as a young woman’s practice, we found that fat talk was common across all ages and all body sizes.