Background: Sexual minority individuals are at disproportionately greater risk for eating disorders, yet little is known about the ways in which factors in the social environment relate to eating disorder symptoms in this population. Utilizing an ecological systems theory framework, we investigated the relative relationships of macro level (i.e., internalization of sociocultural attitudes about appearance) and micro level (i.e., quality of romantic relationship) social environment influences.
Methods: Men (n = 144) and women (n = 144) in committed same-gender relationships were recruited as a dyad and completed study questionnaires, including multiple measures of eating disorder symptoms. Multilevel models controlling for key variables (e.g., body mass index) were used to examine gender differences, main effects, and interactions.
Results: Men reported greater internalization of sociocultural attitudes and uncontrolled eating. Greater internalization of sociocultural attitudes was related to greater eating pathology across all measures. For men, greater relationship quality was related to less uncontrolled eating.
Conclusions: Individuals in same-gender relationships experience macro (e.g., sociocultural) level vulnerability factors in relation to disordered eating; however, internalization of sociocultural attitudes may be greater for men. Support at the microsystem level in the form of a high quality committed romantic relationship appears to be helpful protection against uncontrolled eating for men.
Keywords: Eating disorders; Ecological systems theory; Gay; Lesbian; Romantic relationship; Same-gender relationship; Sexual minority individuals; Sociocultural attitudes.
Sexual minority individuals are at disproportionately greater risk for eating disorders, yet little is known about the ways in which factors in the social environment relate to eating disorder symptoms in this population. This research investigates sociocultural attitudes and romantic relationship quality as factors in the social environment in relation to eating disorder symptoms for men and women in same-gender relationships. We found differences in the occurrence of eating disorder symptoms, such that sexual minority men had more uncontrolled eating compared to sexual minority women. Across all participants, internalization of sociocultural attitudes was linked to greater disordered eating symptoms. We also investigated a potential buffering role of a romantic partner on eating disorder symptoms, and found that high quality, committed, romantic relationships were beneficially associated with less uncontrolled eating for sexual minority men.
© 2023. The Author(s).