In research published this week in the BMJ it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, reported that obese women are less likely to find a sexual partner. When they do find a partner they are also more likely to report an unplanned pregnancy than their normal weight counterparts, perhaps due to the fact that they are less likely to use healthcare services to obtain contraception.

Whilst some research can be seen to be stating the obvious, the report points out that, "the adverse effects of obesity on health are, for the most part, well documented. The consequences for sexual health, however, are less well understood". So the researchers set out to analyse the association between body mass index (BMI) and sexual activity, sexual satisfaction, unintended pregnancies, and abortions in obese people.

After all, you can't simply assume something is true based on your own guess work. Deep down, we all know that speaking to your mates about something will never give you a statistically valid sample size, no matter haow popular you are on Facebook. Only by speaking to enough people – 12,364 in this case – and analysing the results can you come to any decent conclusions. You'll find none of that 'tested on 35 women' rubbish here that you see in the small print on skincare adverts.

So, now there is a proven link between high BMI and bad sexual experiences, will this be the extra incentive that some of us need to lose some weight? Dr Andrew McCullough from the New York University School of Medicine thinks so. ''It seems like a no-brainer. If you lose weight, you will feel more attractive and that could improve your sex life.''

However, health risks of obesity aside, the slightly more worrying finding of this research is that obese men don't have quite as many problems in this area as obese women. ''Maybe women are more tolerant of tubby husbands than men are of tubby wives,'' said Professor Kaye Wellings, one of the study's authors. Have men been affected by all the images of slim women in the media, or have they always avoided the larger lady?

Although it's pretty much guaranteed that any overweight or obese women losing some of their excess will become more confident and therefore get more sex, please remember that you should never do this for anyone other than you. If you're going to lose weight, make sure you do it for yourself. Changing your body to please other people, or simply to get laid, is never going to make you truly happy.

Image viaI Don't Know, Maybe's Flickr