Association between Obesity and Forced Sex among Adolescents

Background: The prevalence of sexual violence among adolescents increased rapidly. Although many attributable factors could result in this increase, considering the obesity epidemic in teenagers, the objective is to examine the association between obesity and the risk of being forced to have sex among adolescents.

Methods:  The data of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) 2007- 2011 were used, including 41,937 adolescents aged 15-24 years. We compared the proportion of adolescents who reported ‘have been forced to have sex’ by gender, age, race/ethnicity and weight status (underweight, normal, overweight, and obese). Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine the association between ‘Forced sex’ and obesity, controlling for age, race/ethnicity and complex design features. 

Results: Overall 8.4% of adolescents have forced sex and girls report higher rate than boys (10.2% vs. 6.0%, p<0.0001). The risk of having forced sex rise up with increasing age while 10.2% of adolescents aged 18+ report forced sex. Black adolescents have the highest rate (10.5%), and followed by Hispanic (8.6%) and White groups (7.2%). Over 8.5% of obese adolescents have forced sex, however, no significant difference is found across different weight status. After stratified by gender, obese girls are 1. 2 (95% CI: 1.01-1.48) times more likely to have forced sex comparing to those with normal weight, controlling for age and race. This association is not detected among boys.

Conclusion: Girls, being black and age 18+ are high risk groups of  forced sex. The association between obesity and forced sex were only found among girls.