There is a relationship between eating disorders and sexuality, gender identity, and body image. Research indicates that gay, bisexual and lesbian teens are at more risk of binge eating, purging and laxative use than their heterosexual counterparts. Its not just the adolescents but adults suffer from eating disorders too.

What triggers eating disorders in LGBTQ community?

Even when things have changed drastically for LGBTQ community, there is still a lack of support at multiple levels that they go through. People across the globe must be aware of recent laws but are still not culturally competitive enough to deal with their LGBTQ counterparts with more mindfulness. As a result such people still experience situations as listed below and as a result get prone to eating disorders to cope up with the stress. 

• Rejections by family and friends
• Experience of violence or trauma
• Victim of bullying due to sexual orientation
• Low self esteem due to gender orientation
• Discriminations at all levels of society
• Unsafe environments or homelessness

Despite staying in communities there is a sense of isolation in them. As a result research indicates that compared to heterosexual men, bisexual and gay men suffer from subclinical eating disorder, subclinical bulimia and full syndrome bulimia. As far as females are concerned, in comparison to heterosexual counterparts lesbian and bisexual females are twice more prone to binge eating. All they require is a sense of connectedness with people around them to lead a life which is stress free and happy. The detailed research report can be found in the Journal of Eating Disorders, volume 8, Article number: 51 (2020).