Body image among gay and bisexual men to be explored in major Australian-run study
Image: Image: Scott Griffiths / Twitter.
New Melbourne University study Gay Bodies Worldwide is set to cast a massive global net in exploring the body image of gay and bisexual men.
The study will be led by the Dr Scott Griffiths and the聽Physical Appearance Research Team (PART) at Melbourne Uni, and will reach as many as 3.5 million gay and bisexual men around the world.
The Gay Bodies Worldwide study will invite 3.5 million users on dating and hook-up app Grindr across Australia, the UK, the US and Canada to participate across five years.
Griffiths 聽that evidence suggests gay and bisexual men are more likely to experience eating and body image disorders, but that further research is required.
“More and more men and boys are increasingly seeing their appearance as a domain that they have to excel in and project control over for others,” Griffiths said.
“It’s not surprising then that more and more boys are succumbing to eating disorders and the like.
“There is some evidence that gay and bisexual men are more vulnerable than heterosexual men to eating and body image disorders, and to using appearance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids, which would suggest a greater need for research.”
Participants will be surveyed multiple times over the course of the study to track changes in attitudes and perceptions around body image.
The study’s website says the results will provide “insight into how gay and bisexual mens’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about physical appearance change as they grow older.”
Those who sign up to the survey will answer questions around the types of bodies they are attracted to, appearance-based discrimination, eating and body dysmorphic disorders, cosmetic surgery, steroids, the influence of social media, body-idealisation images in media, masculinity and femininity, as well as suicidality.
It is believed to be the largest prospective survey of gay and bisexual men ever.
“Findings from Gay Bodies Worldwide will transform our understanding of the psychology of male physical appearance,” Griffiths said.
He hopes the results will help “develop cutting-edge treatments for gay and bisexual men with life-threatening body and eating disorders”.
Results from Gay Bodies Worldwide will be released progressively over the course of the study.
In the lead-up to last year’s Mardi Gras, comedian and Mardi Gras telecast host聽.
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鈥淢ardi Gras is a celebration of our community, a celebration of how far we鈥檝e come and a celebration of love for both ourselves and for others,” Creasey said.
The only way to participate is to receive random advertisements for the study on Grindr, which began rolling out on February 15.
For more information about Gay Bodies Worldwide, .
Further reading: ‘‘
Why only those who are on Grindr? – Are those of us – probably the vast majority – who don’t subscribe to these dating & hook-up sites now irrelevant? There are about 25 million people in Australia. Of them it is estimated that between 7% & 10% are members of the GLBTIQ Community, lets say 50% of them are Gay, Bi (or Hetero-same-sex attracted if you prefer). That means that anything from 875,000 up to 1.25 million are Gay, Bi. This study, claimed to be the biggest of it’s type in the world, has only 3.5 million. Irrelevant really isn’t it?
Haven’t the people running this study anything better to do with their time and the Melbourne Uni’s money?
How much is it costing and wouldn’t that money be better spent on developing a Vaccine against HIV which would be of benefit to the entire world and the population of it?
It is really outrageous to conduct this research for Grinder users only, as it will be biased and not relevant to GBTI men at all. Many GBTI men have body image issues, men or all ages and backgrounds and the majority do not use Grinder. They really need to rethink this research,
a great way to find out what twinks think about their body. What about the rest of the community that dont use Grindr? And would never do so because of the hateful things many Grindr users say about them on there.
so are ACON or Thorne Harbour Health supporting this research?