Orientation sexually & BMI

Running head: ORIENTATION SEXUALLY & BMI 1
Orientation sexually & BMI
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ORIENTATION SEXUALLY & BMI 2
Orientation sexually & BMI
Studies depict that there is a close association between BMI and sexual orientation. In a
study conducted by, Smith et al. (2010) found that Sexual Minority (SW) had higher BMI and
SW men had lower BMI than their same-gender heterosexual counterparts. Most studies have
found that bisexual and lesbian women have higher BMI of more than 30 as compared to that of
heterosexual women. BMI difference was relatively steady through the lifetime where the
variations in weight were at the onset of teenage. However, the studies did not depict a greater
incidence of physical disorder thought to be linked with weight (Bankoff, Richards, Bartlett,
Wolf & Mitchell, 2016).
For several years now, various medical researchers have indicated that there is a
significant elevation in BMI amongst women and have tried to depict the potential health risks
that are related to the gain of weight (Jun et al., 2012). However, so far less research has been
conducted to the health status of SW women. Women who belong to SW I identify themselves as
queer, bisexual, lesbian, not heterosexual completely, or those who do not utilize any labels to
identify their sexuality but participate in behaviors of same-sex individuals.
A medicine report on Lesbian, transgender, gay and bisexual health listed obesity to be
one of the health variations in SW women (Institute of Medicine, 2011). Research has also found
that SW women experience many burdens to be flimsy mainly from the community and regularly
a word of conflict from feminist and lesbian society to acknowledge their bodies physically as
they appear.
During the 1990s, various articles in social science and biomedical literature suggested
that SW women were more bound to be obese or overweight as compared to heterosexual

ORIENTATION SEXUALLY & BMI 3
women. In a literature review by Bowen, Balsam & Ender (2008) since 1993-2006, they
obtained 19 studies and classified four of them as big samples that contained more than 500
bisexual/lesbian respondents. Two studies were categorized as medical reviews and 13 of them
were categorized as convenience samples. The researchers found out that nine of the 14 studies,
which had comparison sets had found substantially higher weight in SW women even though the
definite variations were relatively minor.
Six of these studies found no variations in weight by sexual orientation. The rest of the
studies found that bisexual/lesbian women were substantially heavier or bound to be obese
except one study that did not have the heterosexual comparison group. One study found that
bisexual females were bound to be obese.
A study found that African-American and White bisexual and lesbian women were
substantially heavier while at the age of 18 as compared to their heterosexual counterparts.
However, their heaviness did not differ by orientation sexually in any subgroup of ethnicity.
Studies on SW youth have also depicted that there is different slightly between bisexual, lesbian
and heterosexual women, especially when differentiated by race. It was found that obesity
prevalence in bisexual girls was highest among African Americans, Latina, and White groups.
However, Latina lesbian was less bound to be obese as compared to Latina heterosexuals.
It was reported by another study that lesbians were more bound to be acknowledged as
deadly obese as compared t heterosexual or bisexual women (Everett & Mollborn, 2013). The
difference in obesity or BMI in lesbian associated with bisexual women, however, is hard
difficult to determine using these set of data. Six bisexual and lesbian women studies were
combined, in these studies; four of them found that lesbians were much heavier that bisexual
women and mixed findings or no difference was found in seven studies. Majority of these studies