School Safety Among Sexual and Gender Minority Adolescents: Implications for Eating and Weight Control Behaviors.

The data are cross-sectional, so school safety and eating or weight-control behaviors were measured at the same time; the study cannot show that feeling safe at school caused fewer negative behaviors. Participants were recruited through Human Rights Campaign networks, community partners, and social media, so findings may not apply to sexual and gender minority adolescents who do not access those online networks. All key measures were self-reported, including height and weight used to compute BMI percentile, and the study did not measure objective school safety or neighborhood safety. The study tested associations, not an intervention, so it does not show that school safety programs would change weight control or eating behaviors. Missing data were handled statistically, and the exact number of participants analyzed for each model is not stated in the text.

All authors declared no conflicts of interest. The survey was collected in partnership with the Human Rights Campaign, which helped recruit participants.

Do not conclude that improving school safety will reduce unhealthy weight control behaviors, binge eating, or eating to cope. The study measured school safety and behaviors at the same time in a self-report survey, so it cannot show that school safety caused fewer behaviors.