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Lesbian, gay, bisexual youth face greater risk for disordered eating

Compared with their heterosexual youth counterparts, sexual minority youth, including lesbian, gay, bisexual adolescents, reported a disproportionately higher prevalence of disordered eating, according to study results.

“[One theory] proposes that many of the unhealthy behaviors and outcomes found among [lesbian, gay and bisexual] individuals are influenced by the social stress they experience,” Ryan J. Watson, PhD, postdoctoral research fellow from the University of British Colombia and colleagues wrote. “Having to cope with stressors such as lack of social acceptance, harassment and rejection, and even instances of physical victimization can lead to depression, other psychological symptomatology, and in some individuals, to internalizing behaviors such as disordered eating.”

The researchers used pooled data from a population-based sample from the 1999 to 2013 Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (N=26,002) to investigate trends in purging, fasting, and using diet pills among heterosexual and sexual minority youth in Massachusetts.

Watson and colleagues found that across nearly all groups of heterosexual and sexual minority adolescents, the frequency of disordered eating has decreased on all three measures. However, in all survey years, lesbian, gay and bisexual students reported a higher incidence of purging, fasting, and using diet pills compared with heterosexuals, suggesting this disparity is not improving. The disparities between lesbian adolescents and heterosexual females in fasting to control weight widened between the first and last survey. The prevalence of fasting to lose weight actually increased among lesbians, who were more than twice as likely to fast to lose weight in 2011 to 2013 compared with 1999 to 2001.

“These findings illuminate important health concerns for sexual minorities — especially females — and shed light on the need for further scholarship around reducing disparities in disordered eating for this population,” Watson and colleagues wrote. “Scholars may need to examine the mechanisms through which disordered eating interventions work to reduce the prevalence of disordered eating — such as a focus on body image — specific for sex, to elucidate aspects that may differentially affect gay, lesbian, and bisexual males and females.”–by Savannah Demko