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Does organised religion make you fat? According to a long-term study, churchgoing adults face a heftier risk of being obese by middle age.
The study, which was conducted by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, monitored 2,433 participants for 18 years. They were aged between 20 and 32 at the start of the study, an age at which the irreligious tend to indulge in vices other than food.
By the end of the study, a division had become apparent. Adjusting for factors such as race, sex, and starting weight, those who attended at least one religious activity a week were 50 per cent more likely to have become obese than their non-churchgoing peers.
Obesity is medically defined as having a body mass index over 30, with the normal range spanning from 18.5 to 25. It is associated with elevated health risks across a range of conditions, potentially counteracting the health benefits that religious attendance has been shown to bring.
“We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with the development of obesity,” said lead investigator Matthew Feinstein, “but the upshot is these findings highlight a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity prevention.”
Is it simply that the communion wafer is more fattening than expected? Feinstein speculated that “getting together once a week and associating good works and happiness with eating unhealthy foods could lead to the development of habits that are associated with greater body weight.”
Anecdotal evidence from this side of the pond suggests this may be an ingrained trend. Emma Jones, a British undergraduate and churchgoer, pointed out that at university “the standard way to entice people to events is with the promise of free booze, but with Christian events it’s almost invariably free food”.
“Our weekly church breakfast wouldn’t be complete without the trio of cereal, pastries, and bacon and fried egg sandwiches,” she continued, highlighting one potential pitfall of eschewing sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
This study was the first of its kind to examine the correlation between obesity and religious attendance, and was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Early church-based interventions which focus on educating members about dietary changes have shown promising results.
The findings were presented at the American Heart Association’s Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism/Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention Scientific Sessions 2011.
Images: Church Buffet by Debbie Galant and Potato Salad by penguincakes
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