Teenage Girls Weight May Affect Sexual Behavior

As a teenage girl, I can remember all the insane things I would do to try and keep my weight in check. I did Slim-Fast for a few weeks until I realized if I ever saw another chocolate shake again, I would have to run somebody over. I even forced my mother to buy me Richard Simmons’ ‘Sweating to the Oldies’ and boogied down to ‘Under the Boardwalk’ doing kick-ball-chains and jazz hands. In fact, I don’t think I have ever admitted that until today. Nevertheless, teenage girls all across the country are obsessed with their weight: too fat, too skinny, too lanky, a tummy that pooches out too much. Weight obsessions can spur on many an eating disorder, but a recent study shows that a teenage girl’s weight may also affect her sexual behavior.

The new study had over 7,000 female high-school student participants and suggested that a teenage girl’s actual weight or simply the perception of her own weight could affect how likely she would be to participate in sexual behavior deemed risky. Results from the study showed that teenage girl who were considered underweight or overweight were less likely to utilize contraceptives like condoms than teenage girls who were considered normal-weight. Results were published in a recent issue of the Pediatrics journal. The data adds “to a growing body of literature that girls at the weight extremes may be at increased risk for engaging in sexual risk-taking behaviors.”

Why this phenomenon exists is unclear to researchers in the study. In addition, another factor that plays a part in this scenario is a teenage girl’s race. Race combined with a teenage girl’s actual weight or perception of her own weight plays differently amongst Latina, black and white girls. The study was led by Dr. Aletha Yvette Akers from the University of Pittsburgh and data was utilized from a health survey sponsored by the government. In the survey, each girl was asked to answer questions about her sexual behavior, her height, her weight and her perception of herself weight-wise (i.e. too thin, too fat or just right). Fifty percent of the girls surveyed were no longer virgins; however, weight did not seem to play a factor in this.

Akers and her colleagues discovered that perception of weight had a profound influence on a teenage girl’s sexual behavior. Girls who considered themselves overweight were 20% less likely to admit to being sexually active; however, these same girls, if they did admit to being sexually active, had a higher chance of having their first sexual encounter before the age of 13. Underweight girls were 60% less likely than their normal-weight counterparts to use a condom during sexual relations. In terms of race, black girls who were underweight were also less likely to utilize contraceptives like condoms.

Akers and fellow researchers “speculate that girls with a negative body perception may have a limited capacity or willingness to negotiate effectively with partners resulting in higher rates of sexual risk behaviors.” The researchers suggest that a girl’s perception of her weight coupled with her race could be equally important as a girls’ actual weight in determining her sexual behavior.