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Psychology 320: Gender Psychology

Lecture 54

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Physical Health:

1. What factors account for sex differences in health? (continued)

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Consistent with the greater alcohol and illicit drug use among males than females, males are more likely than females to be alcohol dependent (3.9% vs. 1.3%) and illicit drug dependent (1.1% vs. 0.5%; Statistics Canada, 2004).

What factors account for sex differences in health? (continued)

2. Health Behaviours

(c) Alcohol and Other Drug Use

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The higher rates of alcohol and illicit drug use among males than females may contribute to the relatively high mortality rate among males.

Alcohol and illicit drug use are associated with adverse health consequences: heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver, accidents, suicide, homicide, impotence, birth defects, AIDS, and some forms of cancer.

Alcohol use has been implicated in the greater number of fatal accidents among males than females.

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Nevertheless, research suggests that females may be more vulnerable to the acute and chronic effects of alcohol and other drugs (Nolen-Hoeksema & Hill, 2006; Roth et al., 2004).

Females become more quickly addicted to alcohol and drugs than males and experience more adverse health consequences (e.g., brain atrophy) from alcohol than males.

Females are more likely than males to receive treatment for drug abuse.

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(d) Overweight, Obesity, and Exercise

Healthy vs. unhealthy weight is determined by the body mass index (BMI):

BMI = weight (kg) / (height (m) 2

Overweight = BMI of 25 to 29.9

Obese = BMI ≥ 30

Rates of overweight and obesity have increased substantially over the last 3 decades. Today, 36% of

Canadian adults are overweight and 23% are obese (Statistics Canada, 2006).

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1979 1990 2004

Overweight

ObesePer

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Trends in Overweight and Obesity Across Time (Statistics Canada, 2006)

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Males are more likely than females to be overweight. Males and females do not differ in rates of obesity (Statistics Canada, 2006).

Females are more likely to exhibit gynoid obesity, whereas males are more likely to exhibit android obesity. Android obesity poses a greater threat to health than gynoid obesity.

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Overweight Obese

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Overweight and Obesity by Sex(Statistics Canada, 2006)

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The higher rates of overweight among males than females and the greater tendency toward android obesity among males than females may contribute to the relatively high mortality rate among males.

Overweight and obesity are associated with adverse health consequences: heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoarthritis, gallbladder disease, and some forms of cancer.

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Nevertheless, the psychological (e.g., depression), social (e.g., marriage), and economic costs (e.g., education, income) of overweight and obesity are greater for females than males (Gortmaker et al., 1993; Hoe et al., 2006).

Among the primary factors implicated in the increasing rates of overweight and obesity is lack of exercise. Across all age groups, males are more likely than females to engage in leisure-time physical activity and vigorous exercise, although the sex

difference is very small.

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Physical Health:

1. What factors account for sex differences in health? (continued)