Sexual Orientation and Body Image Dysmorphia :: Sexuality Homosexuality Essays

Sexual Orientation and Body Image Dysmorphia Recent research has concluded that familiar orientation, in both men and women, may play a significant role in the feelings of dissatisfaction of ones physical appearance and the development and onset of disordered eating habits. Numerous studies watch found that homosexual men have a higher likelihood of being more dissatisfied with their overall physical appearance. It is not so shed light on for homosexual women. In this paper I will review a number of published research article and try to more clearly condone the contrasting results about homosexual women.ADOLESCENT SEXUAL ORIENTATIONAlthough most of the studies look at an adult population, a think by French, Story, Remafedi, and Resnik, examined the effects of sexual orientation on an adolescent population. In their study they looked at a population based sample of about 35,000 students between the grades of seven and twelve. Each of these students spotless a survey that asked questions about sexual orientation, body satisfaction, and different weight control measures. The final report included the findings from 212 heterosexual males and 182 heterosexual females for comparison with 81 self- identifying homosexual males and 38 self- identifying homosexual females, and 131 bisexual males and 144 bisexual females.They discovered that homosexual males were much more believably than heterosexual males to report having a little body image (27.8% to 12%) and admit to frequent dieting (8.9% to 5.5%), binge eating (25.0% to 10.6%), or purging (11.7% to 4.4%). On the other side, homosexual females were more likely than heterosexual females to report that they were happy with the way that they looked (42.1% to 20.5%). Interestingly though, homosexual and heterosexual females were about equally as likely to diet, participate in binge eating, and concern in purging.PROBLEMS WITH STUDYAlthough the study seems to be appropriate, one must be wary about looking at a s tudy, which was conducted through the use of surveys. This is specially true when you are asking adolescents questions that deal with sexuality. It is possible that an adolescents embarrassment could be a factor in the answering of the questions. Social stereotypes could slowly influence a heterosexual male to answer positively to questions about his body image because body angst is usually associated as a female behavior.This study is important to research on this topic because it shows that from the beginning of sexual orientation decisions, eating habits are a priority to some. Finicky and disordered eating problems are not something that develops later in life.