(PS7-B27) Minority Stress and Obesity Among SGM-AFAB Adolescents and Young Adults

Though obesity is prevalent across almost all demographic groups, it is particularly prevalent among sexual and gender minorities assigned female at birth (SGM-AFAB, Boehmer et al., 2007). Minority stress theory (Meyer, 2003) emphasize how individuals with minoritized social identities are at increased risk for physical health disorders due to minority stressors. Although prior work has theorized that minority stress theory could provide an explanation for the association between SGM-AFAB identity and obesity, it has been rarely tested empirically. The present study investigated how sexual and gender minority stress may contribute to obesity among SGM-AFAB. 

Data were drawn from FAB400, a longitudinal cohort study of SGM-AFAB adolescents and young adults (N= 400; 16-20 years old at baseline). Participants completed a baseline assessment with six subsequent visits occurring every 6 months. Obesity was assessed in an age-appropriate manner at each time point for each participant in this dataset that spans late adolescence and young adulthood: at time points when participants were aged 20 or younger using BMIz and at time points when participants were older than 20 using BMI participants were categorized as either obese or not (Ng & Cunningham, 2021). At all timepoints, participants completed valid minority stress questionnaires assess victimization, microaggressions, and internalized stigma.

To determine if sexual minority stress increases the risk for obesity among SGM-AFAB youth, we tested for within-person associations between the minority stress variables and obesity. We ran separate multilevel models for each minority stress variable (victimization, microaggressions, and internalized stigma). There was a significant average within-person effect of microaggressions on obesity (OR = 2.09); individuals’ likelihood of obesity was higher at waves when they reported more microaggressions than at waves when they reported fewer microaggressions. However, there were no within-person associations of either SM internalized stigma or victimization with obesity.

             Results suggest that some, but not all, minority stressors are associated with obesity. Within persons, an increase in anti-SM microaggressions was associated with increased risk for obesity, providing support for theories that minority stress may contribute to the high rates of obesity among SGM individuals, as it does for other physical health disparities (Lick et al., 2014). The pattern of findings- in which microaggressions but not acute victimization experiences were associated with obesity risk- echoes previous findings that microaggressions explain more variance in SM individuals’ anxiety and depression than does overt victimization (Swann et al., 2020) and is consistent with general chronic stress theory, which highlights the particularly negative effects of long-term, chronic stressors (Marrioti, 2015). Although it is important to not dismiss the harmfulness of anti-SM victimization, it is possible that microaggressions may be particularly harmful to young SM-AFAB’s weight-related health. Future research is needed to determine if finding will generalize to all SM-AFAB.