We have yet another reason to stop erasing bisexual people and their existence. They are at a higher risk of experiencing body disorders, and their struggle goes largely unheard.
A new report from the University of California San Francisco was published in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders earlier this month. The study sampled over 4,500 LGBTQ adults and found that a quarter of bisexual men reported having fasted for more than eight hours to influence their weight or appearance. That’s not all, eighty percent of bisexual men also reported that they “felt fat” and 77 percent reported having a strong desire to lose weight. Meanwhile, only twenty percent of gay men said that they fasted for more than eight hours to change their weight, 79 percent of gay men said they “felt fat,” and 75 percent of gay men had a strong desire to lose weight.
In the end, 3.2 percent of bi men had been clinically diagnosed with eating disorders, according to NBC News. Meanwhile, 2.9 percent of gay men could say the same.
Dr. Jason Nagata, a professor of pediatric medicine at UCSF and a co-author of the study, noted that this result shows the need to conduct eating disorder research independently studying different sexual orientations and identities.
“Prior studies on eating disorders in sexual minority men have grouped gay and bisexual men together, so it was difficult to understand the unique characteristics in bisexual men,” Dr. Nagata said.
And it would seem that Dr. Nagata’s sentiments are correct. While there have been studies about body disorders in LGBTQ people, including one in 2018 that focused on LGBTQ youth, these studies rarely go into the intricacies of specific sexual identities. If nothing else, this study revealed the need to conduct more research to understand how the different branches of LGBTQ people and life are suffering. Then, we can understand how better to help.
Source: NBC News,
