Alternate title: Get off the pew, Fat A@%
According to research from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, young adults who frequently attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to turn into obese middle-agers than those with no religious involvement.
The researchers acknowledge there are many potential explanations for the association between religious participation and obesity.
- One may simply be that religious gatherings often may center around eating traditional, high-calorie comfort foods, said Matthew Feinstein, the study's lead investigator.
- Or perhaps, young adults with a propensity toward weight problems find more acceptance and less judgment in church groups.
- Maybe religious faith gives some sort of physiological high similar to physical exercise, but without the burn off of calories.
- Or maybe, as Purdue University sociologist Ken Ferraro has suggested with his previous work, "churches are a feeding ground for gluttony and obesity."
Baptist women are at highest risk of obesity, followed by Fundamental Protestants, according to Ferraro's work.
Found at the Chicago Tribune
Posts
