Lesbian diet has better quality than straight women’s diet
Though we’ve always been warned that we lesbians have a problem with our weight, it’s surprising to note that the lesbian diet has a higher quality than the diet of straight women.
Data from a long-running nationwide study of nurses revealed that lesbian and bisexual women have a higher diet quality as compared to heterosexual women. Moreover, lesbians also have lower caloric intake than straight women.
What does this mean? It means that there are other factors than diet behind our higher rates of being overweight.
Bisexual, lesbian diet in nurses’ health study
The nationwide study– the Nurses Health Study II– looked into the health of more than 100,000 female registered nurses in the US with the age of 24 to 44 years old. Of this sample, 1.3 percent identified as lesbian of bisexual.
From this study, data was gathered to look at the “dietary quality and intake during adulthood comparing heterosexual women to lesbian and bisexual women.”
What the data revealed was that on the average, lesbian and bisexual women reported better diet quality than heterosexual women. Moreover, lesbians had a lower glycemic index than straight women.
However, the researchers said more work is needed to see how diet is affecting sexual minorities with regard to the risk of chronic conditions (like diabetes).
“Physical activity, sedentary behavior, disordered eating behaviors, and psychosocial and minority stress should be explored as potential contributors to higher rates of obesity among sexual minority women,” the researchers noted.
Lesbian diet issues: Obesity and heart disease
We should remember that heart disease is the number one killer of all women. Factor in the risks for heart disease like obesity, smoking, and stress– which are all pretty high among lesbians– and we’ve got a greater chance of developing heart disease.
What’s more, being obse can not only make you more likely to get heart disease, but also cancers of the uterus, ovary, breast, and colon.
Studies have noted that lesbians store fat more in the abdomen and have a greater waist circumference. This places us at a higher risk for heart disease and other obesity-related issues.
We also have to be careful in taking up risky weight loss behavior, like taking up laxatives to lose weight.
“In a recent study we conducted with high school girls from across the US, we found that one in three sexual minority girls engaged in abuse of laxatives or diet pills or self-induced vomiting to control their weight in the past month compared to fewer than one in ten heterosexual girls,” S. Bryn Austin of the Boston Children’s Hospital told ResearchGate.