Health issu for gay men and other men who have sex wh men - Mayo Clic

Contents:

• I DON'T RE IF YOU'RE GAY, STRAIGHT, ENGAGED... WHATEVER. A GUY...
• I DON'T RE IF YOU'RE GAY...
• I DON'T CARE IF YOUR GAY OR STRAIGHT OR BI
• ARE GAY MEN MORE F? OBY AND OVERWEIGHT DIFFERENC AMONG GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN
• I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE GAY
• I DON’T RE IF YOU’RE BLACK, WHE, STRAIGHT, BISEXUAL, GAY, LBIAN, SHORT, TALL, FAT, SKNY, RICH OR POOR. IF YOU’RE NICE TO ME, I’LL BE NICE TO YOU. SIMPLE AS THAT.

I DON'T RE IF YOU'RE GAY, STRAIGHT, ENGAGED... WHATEVER. A GUY...

LGBT is still a popular term ed to discs genr and sexual mori, but all GSRM are wele beyond lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr people who nsent to participate a safe space.

" Beg gay is an important aspect of a person's life, and the people that re about them should also re about their stggl and triumphs. This seems to suggt that the public acceptance and unrstandg of sexualy and sexual orientatn may have changed, and that gay men, at least certa rol, are now more accepted, and perhaps even celebrated.

I DON'T RE IF YOU'RE GAY...

Stereotypil gay mal may be portrayed as flamboyant, hypersexual, effemate, fashnable, th, and preoccupied wh body image (Madon, 1997; McLghl & Rodriguez, 2017; Rothmann, 2013), The last two stereotyp have potential relevance for several health out, cludg overweight and many margalized inti, sexual orientatn and sexualy have been narrowly fed based on certa behavrs, characteristics, and expectatns of what means to be a gay man Ameri. A hypersexualized view of gay men suggts they are primarily visual creatur, and they sire sexual partners who are well kempt, attractive, and th. In fact, rearch suggts that gay men, more so than straight men, place a greater emphasis on physil attractivens orr to nform to bety ials and to be more sexually attractive (Siever, 1996; Wood, 2004).

In this chapter, we enavor to answer the qutn, are gay men ls likely to be characterized by oby or overweight than straight men?

I DON'T CARE IF YOUR GAY OR STRAIGHT OR BI

Dpe an expansive lerature the last few s on the quali and characteristics of gay and straight men, rearch that explor the prevalence of oby and overweight the gay male populatn is much more limed, pecially parg them to the straight male populatn. We also exame the likelihood of overweight or oby gay mal pared to heterosexual first discs the ma approach ed the rearch lerature on the nceptualizatn and measurement of what means to be a gay or straight man. We next review the rather limed lerature about the prevalence of oby and overweight the gay male and straight male populatns.

Quantative measur intify gay mal as those who are sexually oriented toward persons of the same sex, straight mal as those who are oriented toward persons of the oppose sex, and mal who are bisexual as those who are oriented towards persons of both sex. Acrdg to the social nstctnist view, sexualy and sexual orientatn exist along a ntuum, wh varyg gre of homosexualy/heterosexualy. Fally, rearchers g the dimensn of sexual self-intifitn ask how dividuals self-intify, as gay, as straight, or as bisexual?

ARE GAY MEN MORE F? OBY AND OVERWEIGHT DIFFERENC AMONG GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN

If the stereotype of gay mal as more physilly f and more mcular pared to straight mal is accurate, then BMI might be a particularly problematic measure studyg the te risks of oby as relat to sexual orientatn.

Acrdg to the CDC (2022), BMI is morately rrelated wh both the prevalence of those out and objectively better measur of body posn offered by more direct measur of body fat such as skld thickns measurements, belectril impedance, unrwater weighg, dual energy x-ray absorptmetry (DXA) and the like (see Denton & Karpe, 2016; Goyan, 2012; Scerpella et al., 2013 for more tailed discsns of the alternative methods) Gay Mal More or Ls Likely to Have Overweight and Oby than Straight Mal? The rults showed ls of a risk of overweight and oby among mal who are gay pared to those who are straight (Tuthill et al., 2020). In a siar study g self-reported data, Periera (2021) found that the stereotypil expectatns of gay men as th and f were fact associated wh lower risks of beg obe and overweight.

For example, Carpenter’s (2003) rearch shows that oby gay mal tends to crease the likelihood of a partnered relatnship pared to the likelihood for straight men, even when ntrollg for the overall lower percentag of partnerships among gay men.

I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE GAY

At least one analysis suggts that gay mal may actually be at a greater risk of beg unrweight and malnourished to meet this “body fascist ‘no pecs; no sex’ world of metropolan gay masculy” (Richardson, 2015: 646). (2015) found that mal who are gay are ls likely to engage strenuo physil activy, perhaps for siar reasons as those for straight women, so as to be more appealg to rults of the limed rearch are mixed; some fd that sexual mory stat is associated wh healthier weights (Tuthill et al., 2020).

Others suggt that fact, gay men may be at a higher risk for unrweight due to perceived prsur to be th (Periera, 2021; Laska et al., 2015). Still other rearch has reported no statistilly signifint difference the BMI tegori of gay mal when pared to straight mal (Periera, 2021; Richardson, 2015). Rearchers have also documented other health related trends wh dispari between mal who are gay and mal who are straight, cludg a higher cince of smokg, creased accs to healthre, and creased mental health issu, which might impact weight and the cince of oby (Carpenter, 2003; Laska et al., 2015; Sang et al., 2021; Tuthill et al., 2020) this chapter, we attempt to addrs some of the voids and overe some of the nsistenci the lerature jt reviewed.

I DON’T RE IF YOU’RE BLACK, WHE, STRAIGHT, BISEXUAL, GAY, LBIAN, SHORT, TALL, FAT, SKNY, RICH OR POOR. IF YOU’RE NICE TO ME, I’LL BE NICE TO YOU. SIMPLE AS THAT.

MeasurWe now discs the qutnnaire ems om the NSFG that we will e our analysis of gay mal and straight mal pertag to the three most mon dimensns of sexual orientatn, namely, sexual behavr, sexual attractn, and sexual self-intifitn. Of the 5206 male rponnts, 4207 have valid rpons, meang that they n be tegorized as behavg as eher straight mal or as gay mal. We have tegorized gay mal as those who are only or who are maly attracted to mal, while straight mal are those who report they are only or are maly attracted to femal.

We further rtrict our analys to those who also have valid rpons on the var dimensns of sexualy, th rultg analytic sampl of 3675 mal g the behavr dimensn of sexualy, 4028 mal g the attractn dimensn, and 3960 mal g the self-intifitn mentn one last fal pot about the analys to be prented below of oby and overweight among gay male and straight male rponnts g data om the 2017–2019 NSFG.

RultsWe beg our analysis by examg the distributn of the BMI tegori among gay mal and straight mal; we do this three tim, tegorizg the mal as gay or straight each time acrdg to each of the three sexualy dimensns.

After unrtakg the scriptive analys, we turn to logistic regrsn analys timatg equatns wh a pennt variable of sexual orientatn (gay or straight) and wh the pennt variabl of obe (one set of equatns) or obe/overweight (send set of equatns); each set ntas three equatns, one for each of the three sexualy first prent the scriptive analys. We exame the distributn of all five body mass x (BMI) tegori among the gay male and straight male populatns to terme whether the distributns differ signifintly among the two populatns. 1 (top panel) prents data on the survey-adjted distributns of the BMI tegori among the 3675 gay mal and straight mal, acrdg to the behavr dimensn of sexualy.

In sum, pared to straight mal, gay mal tend to be more characterized by normal weight and ls characterized by overweight and terme whether there is a statistilly signifint difference the distributn of the five BMI tegori among the gay mal pared to the distributn among the straight mal, we lculated a Pearson χ2 statistic which was then rrected for the survey sign wh a “send-orr rrectn” (Rao & Stt, 1984), and nverted to an F statistic. 23 dit that the gay male and straight male groups, tegorized by the behavr dimensn of sexualy, do not differ signifintly wh rpect to the distributn of the five BMI 16. 1 Distributns of BMI tegori among gay mal and straight mal, 20–49 years of age by each of three dimensns of sexualy: 2017–2019 Natnal Survey of Fay Growth (Survey adjted g NSFG rponnt samplg weights)Full size tableWe next exame the distributns of the BMI tegori among gay and straight mal, tegorized as beg eher straight or gay acrdg to the attractn dimensn of sexualy.

Of the male rponnts the NSFG who are between the ag of 20 and 49 (meang they have valid BMI data), 4028 may be signated as gay or straight acrdg to the sexual attractn dimensn. As wh the behavral dimensn, those men classified as gay on the basis of sexual attractn have much higher levels of normal weight, and they have ls overweight and oby pared to men who are attracted to women.