Supplement Usage Within GBT2Q Men & Nonbinary Communities: An Investigation of Psychological Determinants
About the Project
The use of dietary and herbal supplements continues to be prevalent worldwide, with annual global sales rising each year because of an increased interest in personal health among consumers. Taking dietary supplements and anabolic steroids without professional guidance may: 1) be an inadequate choice to address existing nutrient deficiencies; 2) predict the use of more dangerous, often prohibited, substances; and 3) result in inadvertent intake of prohibited ingredients that are not explicitly displayed on the label. The cultural standards of masculine bodies have been shown to influence body image, body satisfaction and eating practices. In sexual minority populations, stressors within the gay community connected to gay masculinities, minority stress factors, and pressures to conform to hegemonic body ideals have contributed to higher rates of body dissatisfaction and the engagement in weight control behaviours with harmful consequences such as overeating and bingeing, purging, fasting, compulsive exercise and the use of appearance management products. Given the lack of research, to our knowledge, on the prevalence and psychosocial determinants of supplement use among GBT2Q (gay, bisexual, trans, Two-Spirit, and queer) and nonbinary individuals in Canada, there is an opportunity to fill these gaps and better understand the trends of dietary supplement use and the underlying driving forces (psychosocial, ecological, structural and systemic) in this population.
The overarching aim of this project is to use a community-based participatory approach, working collaboratively with the Community-Based Research Centre (CBRC) -- a community-based participatory research organization specializing in the well-being of gay men and other sexual and gender minorities -- to ensure that this knowledge production can inform professional practices and cultivate a wider public awareness for issues pertaining to GBT2Q and nonbinary communities including body image/dissatisfaction and use of dietary supplements with little/no professional guidance. CBRC has taken a broad approach to health and well-being among GBT2Q communities as well as broader queer and trans communities in Canada -- encompassing sexual, mental, social, and physical health as well as social determinants of health -- in previous knowledge mobilization and advocacy activities. CBRC has also been committed to mobilizing research data into practice through the development of research-informed health promotion and community intervention initiatives, such as Totally Outright and Do You Mind?, and has extensive experience in health-related policy advocacy.
The objectives of this partnership include (1) qualitatively investigating GBT2Q and nonbinary individuals' experiences with supplements through an intersectional lens and how these experiences relate to body image, societal pressures and masculinity; and (2) investigating the prevalence of supplement use and the role of psychosocial and ecological stressors and cognitive predictors, using the integrative model of behavioural prediction. This study will follow a mixed-methods approach. It will consist of a semi-structured interview component that will help define the priorities in this community around dietary supplements, which in turn will inform the components of the quantitative questionnaire that will be implemented on a larger cross-sectional sample.
It is our hope that with our work through a harm-reduction lens in a social-ecological fashion, we can provide information that can better inform GBT2Q and nonbinary communities' nutritional choices as one way to support their overall health and well-being while also providing an equitable and intersubjective approach that directly considers feedback from community members.