Being overweight can damage your sex life

Obese men are less likely to get laid, more likely to suffer from erection problems and, despite having fewer sexual partners, more likely to develop sexually transmitted infections than men who are not overweight.

That is the conclusion of research carried out in Paris and published in the British Medical Journal. The first major study to investigate the impact of being overweight or obese on sexual activity, sexual satisfaction and unintended pregnancy, it involved over 12,000 men and women living in France, including around 3,500 who were overweight or obese:

• obese men were two and half times more likely to experience erectile dysfunction
• obese men were 70% less likely to have had more than one sexual partner in the last 12 months
• obese women were 30% less likely to have had a sexual partner in the last 12 months
• obese single women were also four times more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy

In an accompanying BMJ editorial, Dr Sandy Goldbeck-Wood, a specialist in psychosexual medicine, says: ‘ the study lends a new slant to a familiar message: that obesity can harm not only health and longevity, but your sex life. And culturally, it reminds us as clinicians and researchers to look at the subjects we find difficult.’

The research was led by Professor Nathalie Bajos, Research Director at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale in Paris.