The effect of sexual orientation on BMI levels: Examining the mediating effect of depression.

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between being a sexual minority women and BMI and whether experiencing depressive symptomatology plays a mediating role in this relationship. This study limits itself to researching lesbian and bisexual women, including heterosexual women as a reference group. Sexual minority women generally have impaired mental health and in recent years elevated BMI levels have been found among lesbian women. The data used in this study is the 2018 cross-sectional dataset gathered by the CDC using their Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). By means of multiple regressions, the proposed mediation model was tested and it was found that both lesbian and bisexual women have higher BMIs than heterosexual women, and that bisexual women experience more depressive symptomatology than heterosexual women. Furthermore, using the bootstrapping method, it was confirmed that part of the effect of being a sexual minority woman on BMI can be explained by an impaired mental health amongst this population.