Lose weight, get a sex life −researchers
PUBLICATION:
The
Chronicle−Herald
DATE: 2005.10.19
SECTION: Living
PAGE: F5
SOURCE:
The Associated
Press
BYLINE: Marilynn Marchione
WORD COUNT: 403
VANCOUVER, B.C. − Losing a little weight can do wonders for your sex life.
So says Duke University psychologist Martin Binks, who presented a study Monday at a meeting of The Obesity Society showing that shedding a few pounds can improve things in the bedroom by making people feel better about their bodies.
"You reap a lot of benefit from a moderate weight loss of 10 per cent," Binks said. "It's a wonderful message. You don't have to reach some ideal weight to be healthy and happy." It is one of the few studies to examine the mental and emotional problems that obesity can cause for intimacy, not just the physical troubles such as hormone imbalances or impotence.
"There has not been a lot of research in this area," said Dr. Susan Yanovski, director of obesity research at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Improving your sex life "would be another good reason to lose weight if you're obese."
The study involved 161 women and 26 men, average age 45, with an average body mass index of 41. (A score of 30 or above on this height−and−weight formula is considered obese). All were enrolled in a diet program at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis and had lost 17.5 per cent of their body weight after one year and 13 per cent after two years. (They regained some of the pounds they initially shed). They answered questions about the quality of their sex lives when the study began and every three months thereafter. The most striking improvement in attitudes was seen at three months, when they had lost about 12 per cent of their initial weight.
At the outset, 68 per cent of women said they felt sexually unattractive. One year into the diet, only 26 per cent did. About 63 per cent originally did not want to be seen undressed, but only 34 per cent felt that way a year later.
Initially, 21 per cent of women said they were not enjoying sex; only 11 per cent said so after one year.
"The number of males in the study does limit what we can say about men," but feelings of unattractiveness and unwillingness to be seen naked also applied to them, Binks said. Even when many of them wanted to have sex, the excess weight made it an ordeal. "They'll tell us about simple mechanical difficulty," Binks said.That certainly was true of Carlene Wellington, 62, and her husband, Gary, 63, of suburban Tacoma, Wash. Both were a healthy weight when they married 42 years ago, until she started to "show love" by cooking massive amounts of food. She and her husband ballooned to 237 and 355 pounds, respectively, and their sex life suffered.
