<i>Background</i>. Wh the growg regnn of overweight and oby as signifint, ternatnal public health ncerns, the body of rearch vtigatg the relatnship between body mass x (BMI), sexual health, and sexual functng sexual mory men is still srce. <i>Objective</i>. The purpose of this study is to asss sexual health termants (sexual behavr and sexual functng) relatn to normal weight, overweight, and oby among gay and bisexual men. <i>Methods and Materials</i>. The survey clud four tegori of qutns/measurements, enpassg socmographic rmatn, protected/unprotected sexual behavrs, sexual functng, and BMI. The survey was nducted onle, and recment nsisted of onle notifitns (emails and electronic msag) and advertisements sent to LGBT muny anizatns, mailg lists, and social works. <i>Rults</i>. The study sample was posed of 741 gay and bisexual men, rangg age om 21 to 75 years (<i>M</i><sub>age</sub> = 43.30, SD<sub>age</sub> = 11.37); 62.5% of men self-intified as gay and 37.5% as bisexual. Prevalence of normal weight was 50.3%, of overweight, 33.3%, and of oby, 16.4%. Participants wh overweight and oby showed a lower equency of anal receptive sex whout ndoms when spared to participants wh normal weight. Hierarchil multiple regrsn analysis to asss the effects of BMI on sexual health showed that beg younger age, self-intifyg as gay, beg a relatnship, havg longer penis, adoptg sertive posn sex, and beg normal weight were signifint predictors of anal receptive sex whout ndoms, explag 24.2% of the total variance. Yet, BMI was not predictive of sexual functng. <i>Concln</i>. The fdgs highlight the importance of cludg BMI sexual behavr mols of sexual mory men to better unrstand BMI’s role fluencg sexual risk.
Contents:
- ARE GAY MEN MORE F? OBY AND OVERWEIGHT DIFFERENC AMONG GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN
- I’M FAT AND GAY. HERE’S WHAT I’VE LEARNED.
- HOMOBY: HOW ONE OVERWEIGHT, GAY, MIDDLE-AGED MAN LEARNED TO BE FORTABLE HIS SK
- BEG OVERWEIGHT THE GAY COMMUNY: WHY IT’S NOT A BAD THG
- TABLE 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)
- SEXUAL, BEHAVRAL, AND QUALY OF LIFE CHARACTERISTICS OF HEALTHY WEIGHT, OVERWEIGHT, AND OBE GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN: FDGS OM A PROSPECTIVE HORT STUDY
- GAY AND TRANSGENR CHILDREN MORE LIKELY TO BE OBE, STUDY FDS
ARE GAY MEN MORE F? OBY AND OVERWEIGHT DIFFERENC AMONG GAY AND STRAIGHT MEN
LGBTQ, which stands for lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and qutng, as the acronym suggts, is a large mory group the Uned Stat that * gay and overweight *
LGBTQ, which stands for lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and qutng, as the acronym suggts, is a large mory group the Uned Stat that also clus groups such as transexual, queer, tersex, asexual, and pansexual. As mentned above, stigma, discrimatn, and ternal homophobia n crease risk of disorred eatg, but studi have also shown that dividuals who have a sense of “nnectedns to the gay muny” have a protective effect agast the velopment of eatg disorrs. It is important to regnize the effects of shame, stigma, and ternalized homophobia on the LGBT muny, and how the affects n adversely affect health out the form of disorred eatg and/or unhealthy BMI.
There are limed populatn-based studi the existg lerature on LGB and body weight stat, wh much of what is currently known studied small or regnal sampl and/or nvenience samplg [16, 17, 18, 19] high prevalence of overweightns and oby among certa sexual mory populatns is thought to be related to prejudice, homophobia, and amplified levels of strs that sexual and genr mori face [20]. Inpennt VariablSexual inty was asssed by rponnts’ selectn of one of the followg rpons to “Do you nsir yourself to be”: “Straight, ” “Lbian or gay, ” “Bisexual, ” “Other, ” “Don’t know/Not Sure, ” “Refed, ” and “Not asked or Missg”.
I’M FAT AND GAY. HERE’S WHAT I’VE LEARNED.
Dpe an expansive lerature the last few s on the quali and characteristics of gay and straight men, rearch explorg the prevalence of oby and overweight the gay male populatn is limed, pecially parg them to the straight... * gay and overweight *
CovariatPropensy Sre Mean (Unweighted)Propensy Sre Mean (Weighted)(ASMD om Straight)(ASMD om Straight)StraightGay or LbianBisexualOther/Don’t Know/Not SureStraightGay or LbianBisexualOther/Don’t Know/Not SureAge0.
Overweightns and oby remas a signifint public health issue, and related out should be studied by sexual mory subgroup orr to avoid maskg important found that the overweight group, the full sample of lbian and gay dividuals had lower odds of overweight (although not signifint). This is nsistent wh past rearch nducted small or regnal sampl that found lbian femal had higher rat of oby [17] and that gay mal had lower rat of oby when pared to heterosexual unterparts [16, 19]. ConclnsOur rults strengthen prev fdgs that lbian and bisexual femal have higher odds of beg overweight or obe, whereas gay mal have lower odds of beg overweight or obe when pared to their straight unterparts.
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.
HOMOBY: HOW ONE OVERWEIGHT, GAY, MIDDLE-AGED MAN LEARNED TO BE FORTABLE HIS SK
"The tth is, the gay muny isn't terted embracg overweight people bee we're a blemish on the image of perfectn," says wrer Louis Pezman. * gay and overweight *
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. 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). 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.
BEG OVERWEIGHT THE GAY COMMUNY: WHY IT’S NOT A BAD THG
* gay and overweight *
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. 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. 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.
TABLE 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)
While there have been attempts to explore the associatn of oby and risky sexual behavrs among gay men, fdgs have been nflictg. Usg a prospective hort of gay and bisexual men ridg Ptsburgh, we performed a semi-parametric, group-based analysis to intify distct groups o … * gay and overweight *
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?
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. 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).
SEXUAL, BEHAVRAL, AND QUALY OF LIFE CHARACTERISTICS OF HEALTHY WEIGHT, OVERWEIGHT, AND OBE GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN: FDGS OM A PROSPECTIVE HORT STUDY
Abstract Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to exame the overall prence of and differenc rat of overweight/oby among a large, natnally diverse sample of lbian, gay, bi... * gay and overweight *
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.
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.
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.
GAY AND TRANSGENR CHILDREN MORE LIKELY TO BE OBE, STUDY FDS
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.
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. 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.