ABSTRACT
As early as the 1980s, two articles theorized about the relationship between lesbian sexual orientation and body satisfaction. Sari Dworkin (1989) argued that lesbians, as women in weight-obsessed western societies, would be just as focused on their weight as heterosexual women. Laura Brown (1987), on the other hand, speculated that lesbian communities are more accepting of body weight, viewing a parallel between the oppression of lesbians and oppression of fat women. This chapter will review the research on lesbians and weight, focusing on methodological issues. There is a general assumption that lesbians weigh more than heterosexual women, although population-based studies have varied widely in the results they have found, how weight is reported (actual BMI vs. odds ratios vs. percent “overweight”) and which of these studies are then cited in subsequent publications. It is also possible that heterosexual women under-report their weight, whereas lesbians may be less concerned with weight and thus report it accurately. Some studies have compared female heterosexual college students to lesbians in the community, confounding age and socioeconomic status, both of which are related to weight. The chapter will also review studies that have examined weight among lesbians in the context of body satisfaction, focusing on such variables as feminism, outness, physical activity, self-esteem, and dating/relationships. It is common for authors list a multitude of diseases that lesbians are at enhanced risk for dying of, due to their weight – yet there has been no research following lesbians with health issues to their death. On the contrary, studies that have used laboratory data have not found lesbians to have higher levels of cholesterol, diabetes, blood pressure, or breast cancer, than heterosexual women.
