Table 2.

Characteristics of participants identified as lesbian/gay, bisexual and ‘other’ compared to heterosexuals.

Women	Heterosexual	Lesbian		Bisexual		Other
	(n = 50 463)	(n = 452)	P	(n = 530)	P	(n = 398)	P
Underweight BMI (%)	2.1	2.4	0.67	3.0	0.17	3.0	0.023
Overweight or obese BMI (%)	57.0	59.3	0.34	54.2	0.18	65.8	<0.001
Age (25/50/75 percentile)	34/44/59	28/40/46	<0.001	23/30/42	<0.001	39/49/63	<0.001
Ethnic minority (%)	8.0	4.7	0.01	11.5	0.003	19.6	<0.001
Degree level education (%)	25.6	39.4	<0.001	27.4	0.34	10.1	<0.001
Smoker (%)	21.7	33.2	<0.001	34.2	<0.001	26.4	0.03
Longstanding illness/disability (%)	37.9	40.3	0.30	41.5	0.09	44.2	0.01
Married/cohabiting (%)	62.1	54.7	0.001	44.3	<0.001	58.0	0.09

Men	Heterosexual	Gay		Bisexual		Other
	(n = 40 323)	(n = 643)	P	(n = 343)	P	(n = 277)	P
Underweight BMI (%)	1.2	3.4	<0.001	2.9	0.003	3.3	0.002
Overweight or obese BMI (%)	67.5	52.4	<0.001	60.4	0.005	67.9	0.90
Age (25/50/75th percentile)	35/45/61	29/42/48	<0.001	29/42/58	<0.001	37/55/67	<0.001
Ethnic minority (%)	8.0	4.7	0.002	13.7	<0.001	18.4	<0.001
Degree level education (%)	26.6	39.5	<0.001	27.1	0.82	17.3	0.001
Smoker (%)	23.5	31.4	<0.001	30.6	0.002	26.4	0.26
Longstanding illness/disability (%)	36.2	39.5	0.08	44.0	0.003	44.8	0.003
Married/cohabiting (%)	68.3	40.6	<0.001	46.9	<0.001	53.4	<0.001

Notes: Underweight BMI is defined as a BMI value <18.5 kg/m². Overweight BMI is defined as a BMI value in the range 25–29.99 kg/m². Obese BMI is defined as a BMI value ≥30 kg/m². P values are for comparisons of each sexual orientation identity separately with Heterosexual identity, and are estimated from chi-square tests. The P values for difference in age were calculated using t-tests.