Is Your Church Fat?
Posted by Todd Rhoades in Trends on Nov 15th, 2011 | 2 commentsThe nation’s churches have a weight problem.
In one study of some 5,500 women and men ages 45 to 84, participants were more likely to be obese the more religiously active they were. Each step of the way, from those never attending worship to those attending weekly, greater religious activity was associated with significantly higher rates of obesity.
The integral role food plays in many religious rituals and social functions and a desire not to stigmatize overweight members are among the reasons researchers offer for this anomaly in findings related to religion and health.
The only sermons that would get less approval than those asking members to cut back on eating would be those asking for money, said Shanna Granstra, a Baylor University researcher studying religion and obesity.
People who attended services or otherwise participated in organized religion weekly were 62 percent more like to be obese than those who never participated, according to data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis of adults ages 45 to 84 sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
In a separate study of 2,500 healthy women and men, researchers following up with participants 18 years later found 32 percent of frequent worship attenders became obese. In comparison, just 22 percent of non-attenders became obese, Fitchett reported. The data was taken from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study funded by the heart and lung institute.
Unhealthy eating is lower on the list of pastoral concerns, researchers say, than problems like drug and alcohol abuse, which have greater potential for destroying the lives of individuals, families and other members of the community.
via Religion and Obesity; Report Associates Religious Activity With Weight Gain.
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So… take a look at your church overall. Is your church fat?
Todd
2 Responses to “ “Is Your Church Fat?”
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The role of food in our gatherings isn’t the problem… It’s the food we seem to choose. We eat pretty healthy at our house… and as a result, often my wife and I dread pot lucks because we know that we won’t have the opportunity to do that. There’s loads of donuts available after the service, but not many apples…
Well, since the “obese” (by an arbitrary man made definition) are the despised in our society, the last legal target of discrimination and ridicule, the church should be a place of refuge for them. God made people to come all sizes and shapes all throughout history, but today we copy the secular world in picking a narrow range of desirable physiques and insisting everyone can meet that standard, if only they weren’t moral failures.
Poor people have always flocked to the church, and poor people statistically weigh more. They eat the cheapest foods, and are too busy working long hours at low paying jobs to accomplish leisure exercise. Unhealthy extra weight is a product of malnutrition and overwhelming stress; hormones get set in “survival” mode and compel eating. Dieting is only a temporay stay, which contributes to more stress and malnutrition, unless quite a bit of work and money are put into super-nutrition.
Large people- particularly women- are the lepers of today. People look right past them. They don’t get dates. Job interviewers scorn them. Look around- the service industries of this country are run on the backs of large women. Yes, there have always been those rich people who love to eat and eat and can make themselves fat that way, but I doubt the “rising obesity rate” is all due to that in this economy. So let us open our arms to large people, see them and hug them, show them that God’s love is for them, too, and that they can lay their very heavy burdens at His feet. Let us respect and assist the “working poor” any way we can, rather than treat them as an embarrassment in the church.