Our findings confirm previous research indicating that overweight or obese girls are less likely to be sexually active than other girls. The authors also found that as a result of being less sexually active, overweight or obese girls are less likely to have vaginal intercourse without a condom. However, overweight or obese girls are not less likely to have sex under the influence of alcohol, and once they have had vaginal intercourse, their consistency of condom use is no different from that of their recommended-weight peers. Our most striking finding however, is that overweight or obese girls are at least 15% more likely than their recommended-weight peers to have had anal intercourse.
These findings make clear the importance of going beyond the question of just any sexual intercourse when characterising the sexual behaviour of teenage girls. Our findings also illustrate the benefits of using multifaceted and contemporary measures of risky sexual behaviour. If we had only considered outcomes related to vaginal intercourse, we would have concluded that overweight and obese girls are less likely than their recommended-weight peers to engage in risky sexual behaviour.
-VOXEU
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