Lack of sex makes fat!!!!

Many people have seen the headline "lack of sex makes them fat because the brain lacks happiness, so they turn to eat instead" through the eyes on social media. It sounds like there is a science support, a hormone name, a brain term, and a biological explanation that readers accidentally believe without questioning. This kind of news often uses language that makes them feel like "if not careful, we may be unconscious," which does not explain what level of research it comes from and how it is verified.

When the authors looked back at the research in major databases like PubMed and Google Scholar, looking at nutrition, psychology and health until 2025-2026, no research was found that directly confirmed the lack of sex caused weight gain, no work proved the "no sex → hormone reduction → brain eating → obesity" path, as the news tried to understand.

Holt-Lunstad and Umberson's work, which has long been referenced in public health circles, points out that people who have good relationships with their peers - family, friends, or couples - are often more mentally healthy and take better care of themselves, but does not conclude that the absence of sex automatically causes poor health or weight gain; a key aspect of these works is "the quality of relationships," not "the number or frequency of sexual activity."

Meanwhile, nutritional and psychological research points more clearly to other factors - stress, loneliness, depression, sleep hours, or work-life pressures. Macht's work and a report from the American Psychological Association indicate that many people do not eat because they are actually hungry, but eat because they want to heal their emotions, known as Emotional Eating, and this kind of behavior is associated with body mass index many times more than relationship status.

As for the hormones like dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins that the news likes to quote, neurology acknowledges that physical and emotional intimacy can actually stimulate these substances, but to date, there has been no research to prove that hormone deficiency from nonsex leads to rational obesity, which is to expand some of the data beyond the scope of the actual research and truncate the context needed.

If you look at the 2023-2025 system review work that studies the relationship between gender, health, and obesity, it will be found that researchers value the food environment, income, economic insecurity, working hours, and everyday mobility behavior more than having or not having sex explicitly. Human body weight is therefore not defined by bed matter, but as the sum of our whole-day lives.

The problem with "lack of sex = obesity" is not just misinformation, but it is creating a belief that single is a problem, that no partner is at risk of breaking, and that there is a relationship to be healthy, which is unfair to many people, and does not match scientific evidence, that health is not the reward of a partner, and not the penalty of a single person.

Before sharing the next health news, the author would like to ask the reader if there is any research support or if it is just scary to do science because a piece of misinformation can make someone feel unnecessarily bad about themselves, and good health should not start from fear, but from understanding.

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Reference source

1.Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., & Layton, J.B. (2010) .Social Relationships and Mortality Risk.PLoS Medicine, 7 (7).

2.Umberson, D., & Montez, J.K. (2010) .Social Relationships and Health.Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 51 (S).

3.Macht, M. (2008). How emotions affect eating. Physiology & Behavior, 94 (2).

4. American Psychological Association. (2013). Stress in America: Stress and Eating.

5.Holt-Lunstad, J. (2023). Social connection as a public health issue. Annual Review of Psychology.

6. World Health Organization. (2024). Obesity and mental health.