Trends in body image among Australian queer men during COVID-19 lockdowns

Abstract

ABSTRACT Existing literature demonstrates that COVID-19 lockdowns negatively impacted body image for most people. However, the exact nature of body image shifts during lockdowns and the impact sexuality had on these shifts remains understudied. We sought to investigate this phenomenon among queer men – an at-risk population for negative body image. Participants were 268 (M age = 35.30 years) queer Australian men. They completed measures for lockdown-induced body dissatisfaction, disordered eating and exercising, dysmorphic symptomology, anxiety, depression, and suicidality. Increases in body dissatisfaction and disordered eating during lockdowns were associated with increases in anxiety, depression, and suicidality symptomology. Furthermore, the relationship between body dissatisfaction and depression was moderated by disordered eating and exercise, whereby body dissatisfaction predicted depression only for participants who engaged in heightened disordered eating and overexercise during lockdowns. In other words, body dissatisfaction was most harmful to queer men who specifically sought to remedy this dissatisfaction by engaging in problematic eating/exercise behaviours. These findings have clinical implications for supporting queer men with negative body image in the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns. Namely, queer men might benefit from therapies that build on body neutrality frameworks to help normalise experiences of body dissatisfaction and discourage subsequent disordered eating and exercise.