This, should go a long way into giving some of the deep entrenched cultural explanations to your question. But its a bit long to read so I'll quote some of the juicier bits here in the midst of my rant/explanation.
Ever hear of fat talk? Its an interesting phenomenon, especially among (but not limited to!) middle and high school aged girls.
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Or: the Fat Talk. You know about the Fat Talk, right? Lots of people have written about the Fat Talk already. For years, I thought this was some grody stereotype that you only found in male stand-up comedians’ routines about how women are awful. But then I met women who actually did it: the thing where, before ordering dinner at a restaurant, you all talk about how you should order this and you absolutely cannot order that, because you are so disgusting and you cannot stick to your diet and eating a cheeseburger will literally send you right straight to hell, and if you are the girl who straight-up says she wants some nachos so covered in cheese and guacamole and various meats that they might as well not even have any chips involved – just a big mess of meats and milk fat and squished-up avocados, that is the experience for which you are aiming, and also it would help if the entire thing had sour cream all over it – well, you just might have earned yourself a Complinsult about how brave you are with your dietary habits, young lady.
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Can I tell you how many times I have done this? This, right here, what has just been described. The putting oneself down is a very important part of girl culture. Sure, there's the element of fishing for complements, but it goes beyond that. Its escaping judgment, it's testing the social waters (if you go one about how fat/ugly/gross/ect you are, and you don't get compliments back from some or all listeners? That's how you know people really DO think those things of you, and then you have a problem.
Another thing. If you don't go along with this? Well:
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for a long time, I thought I was just demonstrating my good body image by ordering a cheeseburger and not participating in the Fat Talk, and then I sort of figured out that I was straight-up declaring that I was so hot I got to do whatever I wanted and was too insensitive to appease the body insecurities of my friends, who were (my actions declared) less hot than myself.
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Read the whole thing though. It really is very good.