Abstract
According to literature references, Body Mass Index (BMI), the quality of sexual life, sexual activity, and satisfaction with sexual life are closely associated. However, we found no research dealing with the relation of gender role stress to the above-mentioned factors in our review of the literature. That is why we chose to focus our research on the association of BMI and gender role stress of young Hungarian adult men. Our data is from the ‘Hungarostudy 2013’ (SUSÁNSZKY & SZÉKELY 2013) national representative survey (N = 2000) of which 298 18–35-year-old men belonged to the subsample researched. Besides socio-demographic data, we used data on height, weight, selfrated health status, the WHO (World Health Organization) Well-Being Index, the Illness Intrusiveness Rating Scale and the short form of Beck Depression Inventory. The Male Gender Role Stress Scale (MGRS) was used to measure gender role stress. Our results demonstrate that overweight and obesity play a significant role in the development of gender role stress. Young overweight and obese men in our sample were much more likely to report high gender role stress (OR = 1.67) and within this, sexual performance related stress (OR = 1.76) and sexual arousal related stress (OR = 3.15) than men with normal BMI.As our research was aimed at investigating social expectations measurable in terms of gender role stress and not with real sexual dysfunctions per se, our results indicate that even male gender role expectations, more precisely, sexual performance related expectations, may cause considerable stress for overweight/obese men.
Highlights
These days, overweight and obesity represent a major and growing issue worldwide
We examined the proportion of those belonging to the high stress range in the 12-item Masculine Gender Role Stress Scale (MGRS) scale as well as in the scale items dealing with sexuality and sexual performance by Body Mass Index (BMI) category (Table 1)
Our research examined the associations of gender role stress and Body Mass Index among young Hungarian men (18–35 year old)
Summary
These days, overweight and obesity represent a major and growing issue worldwide. In developed countries, obesity is one of the leading risk factors of chronic illnesses (e.g. diabetes and impairments of the locomotive system) and a principal cause of death (e.g. cardiovascular diseases and malignant tumours) (WHO 2016). They concluded that erectile dysfunction is significantly more common among overweight/obese men, but found no relation among other sexual dysfunctions (lack of sexual partner, frequency and duration of intercourse, satisfaction with sexual life) and body weight The findings of this French research were later confirmed by ESPOSITO and her fellow researchers (2008), i.e. obese men have an approximately 30% higher risk of erectile dysfunction than normal weight subjects. While conducting research into certain body weight issues, and having considered several psychological risk factors as well as demographic factors, researchers have found that, as a tendency, the weight of both sexes increases after marriage; overweight and obesity are more frequent both among married men and women (TÚRY & SZABÓ 2000). The questionnaire was concerned only with anxiety having to do with these issues
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