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Description
Sexual minority men (SMM) are disproportionately at risk for suicidal behavior. Furthermore, aspects of body image are associated with suicidality. Notably, SMM often endorse body image concerns related to muscularity and body fat, which often present with more severity than body image concerns of heterosexual individuals. However, body image’s association with suicidality has rarely been investigated among SMM. Therefore, the current study examined the associations between different forms of body image and suicidality among a community sample of SMM. Participants were 171 SMM recruited for an eating disorder prevention program who completed measures of body fat/muscular dissatisfaction, appearance ideal internalization, and suicide risk. Primary analyses examined the association of body image dissatisfaction with suicide risk, with appearance ideal internalization moderating these associations. Logistic regression and zero-inflated Poisson regression were utilized to test these associations. For the logistic regressions, the association between body fat dissatisfaction and suicide risk was moderated by thin ideal internalization. Upon probing the interaction, body fat dissatisfaction was associated with elevated suicide risk when thin ideal internalization was high. Conversely, low levels of body fat dissatisfaction were associated with elevated suicide risk when thin ideal internalization was low. For the zero- inflated Poisson regressions, body fat dissatisfaction’s association with the count of suicide risk was moderated by thin ideal internalization. Upon probing the interaction, body fat dissatisfaction was associated with increased count of suicide risk at high levels of thin ideal internalization, whereas, body fat dissatisfaction was associated with decreased count of suicide risk at low levels of thin ideal internalization. Results suggest that the association between body image and suicidality may be more complex than previously reported, as internalization of appearance ideals may differentially impact suicide risk stemming from body image dissatisfaction. Therefore, future studies of body image should measure appearance ideal internalization and include these interactions to comprehensively represent body image’s association with suicidality. Muscularity concerns did not predict suicide risk, suggesting that body fat concerns may be more salient in predicting suicidality for SMM than muscularity concerns. Future research should test these associations among non-SMM samples to examine if results generalize to other vulnerable populations.
