A new study has shown that people who frequently attend religious services are significantly more likely to become obese by the time they reach middle age. The finding is surprising especially considering that religious people tend to be in better health than others, said study author Matthew J. Feinstein, a medical student at Northwestern University in Chicago. Feinstein said, “It highlights a particular group that appears to be at a greater risk of becoming obese and remaining obese…It's a group that may benefit from targeted anti-obesity interventions and from obesity prevention programs.”
A lot of years of research has gone into exploring this link. The studies suggest that religious involvement is linked to things like better physical health, less depression and more happiness, said Jeff Levin, director of Baylor University's Program on Religion and Population Health. But it is also noted that people who attend services put on more weight.
In the new study, which will be released Wednesday at an American Heart Association conference in Atlanta, researchers sought to follow people over time to see what happened to them. They examined a previous long-term study that tracked 2,433 people who were aged 20 to 32 in the mid-1980s. Most of the participants were women, and 41 percent were black. After adjusting their statistics to take into account factors such as factors such as age, race, sex, education, income, and baseline body mass index, the researchers found that 32 percent of those who attended services the most became obese by middle age, Feinstein said. By contrast, only 22 percent of those who attended services the least became obese.
Feinstein’s study drew on populations from Alabama, Minnesota, Illinois, and California. Alabama participants, having large populations of overweight and highly religious participants, were thought to have possibly skewed the association. Location was not a factor in the study.
According to Levin one possibility is that those who attend services, along with activities such as Bible study and prayer groups, could be “just sitting around passively instead of being outside engaging in physical activity.” Also, he said, “a lot of the eating traditions surrounding religion are not particularly healthy; for example, constant feasts or desserts after services or at holidays -- fried chicken, traditional kosher foods cooked in schmaltz (chicken fat), and so on.” Whatever the case, Feinstein said, the study points to the role that places of worship could play in reducing obesity.
“They can become part of the solution,” explained Dr. Daniel P. Sulmasy, a professor of medicine and ethics at the University of Chicago, perhaps by increasing awareness of obesity and holding health fairs. “Pastors, especially those in poor neighbourhoods, could champion programs for more fresh produce and less fast food in their neighbourhoods,” Sulmasy added.
Senior study author Donald Lloyd-Jones, M.D., chair of preventative medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine expressed, “Obesity is the major epidemic that is facing the U.S. population right now. We know that people with obesity have substantial risks for developing diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer, and of dying much younger…So, we need to use all of the tools at our disposal to identify groups at risk and to provide education and support to prevent the development of obesity in the first place.”
Cautioning that their findings did not mean frequent religious involvement made people more obese or that the religious had overall worse health statuses compared to the non-religious, the authors highlighted that previous studies have also shown that religious people tend to live longer because they tended to smoke less.
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