COLUMBIA, Mo. — About five days a week at 5:30 a.m., Hudson Lavender meets a friend in front of her home for an hour-long walk on the MKT Trail. At 52, Lavender, an independent living specialist for low-income seniors, made a goal to stay active for her health, especially after having both of her knees replaced in August 2013.
After recovering from the surgery, another friend introduced her to a health study program, Living Out, Living Actively, known as LOLA. Led by Jane McElroy, a University of Missouri epidemiologist and associate professor, the program was a part of the first national study on healthy weight for lesbian and bisexual women. Lavender found that LOLA not only helped her stay mobile after recovery but encouraged her to live a healthier life.
The Columbia Missourian reports that the national study was prompted by 2007 data from the National Center for Health Statistics in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that showed more than 60 percent of adult women in the U.S. are overweight and a little over one-third are obese.
Researchers also drew from the annual National Health Interview Survey, which included sexual orientation for the first time in 2013. Conclusions of that survey showed 37 percent of gay or lesbian women and 41 percent of bisexual women were obese. Compared to 28 percent of obese heterosexual women, obese lesbian and bisexual women are more at risk to developing chronic illnesses, including diabetes, cervical cancer and high cholesterol.
In 2013, McElroy began a study on preventing weight-related chronic illnesses in lesbian and bisexual, or LB, women. Instead of focusing on weight loss, McElroy’s research study created programs to foster healthier lifestyle behaviors. The study emphasized the importance of being at a healthy weight, meaning a body size that is physically and mentally healthy. A key idea was to go beyond stepping on a scale to measure health.
Setting the burden of weight loss aside is crucial for the LB community, McElroy said, because there’s a sense that assessing weight by the numbers is not important. That concept and the ideas that arose from the study have helped empower women such as Lavender to embrace beneficial life changes.
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academics published ““The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding.”“ The report highlighted obesity and weight associated with chronic illnesses specifically for the lesbian community. McElroy said President Barack Obama’s administration supported research addressing health and other issues in the LGBTQ community; that spurred the Office of Women’s Health to engage researchers to study weight-related issues in LB women ages 40 and older.
