Slim people have best quality sex

Substantial weight loss could bring big gains in the bedroom, a new study finds.

Photo: Slim people have best quality sex

According to U.S. researchers, obese individuals who slimmed down enjoyed enhanced sex lives, on top of feeling healthier.

The report was presented at the Obesity Society's annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Previous research by Martin Binks', director of behavior health at Duke University's Diet and Fitness Center in Durham, N.C., suggested that obese people experienced significantly high rates of difficulty in the quality of their sex lives. However, "little is known about the impact of weight loss on these factors," the researcher said.

In their study, Binks and his colleagues examined sexual quality of life data from a weight-loss trial. The trial included 161 obese women and 26 obese men. Data was collected every three months over two years. To measure sexual quality of life, the researchers used items from a standard questionnaire called the Impact of Weight on Quality of Life.

Among the factors covered by the survey: feeling sexually unattractive, lack of sexual desire, reluctance to be seen undressed, difficulty with sexual performance, avoidance of sexual encounters, and lack of enjoyment of sexual activity.

On average, people in the study lost 13 percent of their initial body weight over the two years of the study, Binks said.

"At the beginning of the trial, both male and female participants indicated that they were experiencing significant difficulty in all areas of sexual quality of life," he noted.

Women reported more difficulty than men, Binks said. "For women, not wanting to be seen undressed and not enjoying sexual activity were particularly troublesome," he said.

However, the sex lives of both men and women improved substantially as the pounds melted away.

"Improvements in the quality of sexual life were directly related to weight loss and seemed to reach their maximum at about 12 percent weight loss," Binks said.

Sixty-seven percent of the women said they felt sexually unattractive at the start of the study. "That prevalence dropped to 26.4 percent at one year and remained stable," Binks said. "Not wanting to be seen undressed went from 62.7 percent to 34.3 percent," he added. There were similar reductions in the other areas, Binks said.

While there were similar improvements among men, there were too few men in the study to be able to draw definitive conclusions, Binks said. For men, not wanting to be seen undressed and not enjoying sexual activity were the two most important issues, just as they were for women.

"A 10 percent reduction in weight significantly improves most health issues," Binks concluded.

"It appears that sexual quality of life improves in a similar way to [other] weight-related issues."

One expert agrees that how an individual feels about their body is key to their sexual well-being.

"Body image is a big part of sexuality," said Lona Sandon, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association and an assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas.

"If you do not feel comfortable with your body as it is, you are not likely to feel comfortable sharing it with someone else," Sandon added. Weight loss may help give you a more positive outlook about your body. Regular exercise and eating healthy can also help improve body image, even without weight loss, HealthDay advises.

Another study confirms this study’s results. Men with large waistlines are more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction (ED) than those of slimmer girth, according to the findings of a study conducted by the American Urological Association. Men with waistlines as large as 42 inches were likely to get ED twice as much against those with 32 inches. Needless to mention, the study clearly indicated that those exercising were less likely to suffer from ED than those who led a sedentary lifestyle.

Overweight men have high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels which damage the arteries supplying blood to the sexual organ. Obesity being often a cause of diabetes, the latter in turn injures the blood vessels and the nerves that may severely affect erections. Alcohol and psychotropic substances (drug abuse) too can cause erectile dysfunction due to the damage they cause to the blood vessels and the nerves which control erection. Smoking and the resultant hypertension too have been found to disturb badly the arousal-response system that works on erectile tissue of the organ, livearticles.org reports.

Prepared by Alexander Timoshik
Pravda.ru