Twenty-seven percent of Baptists are obese according to a recent study--and their church culture may have something to do with it.
In her article, "Weighty Matter" Cathleen Falsani reported on a study by Ken Ferraro, a Purdue sociology professor who studied more than 2,500 adults over a span of eight years looking at the correlation between their religious behavior and their body mass index.
He found that about 27 percent of Baptists were obese. That's compared with 20 percent of "Fundamentalist Protestants" (Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God and Church of God), about 18 percent of "Pietistic Protestants," (Methodist, Christian Church and African Methodist Episcopal), and about 17 percent of Catholics. (No mention of Greek Orthodox, though--and, hey, I saw the meals they were serving in My Big Fat Greek Wedding).
On the other end of the--um--scales, his study found that only 1 percent of the Jewish population were overweight, and less than 1 percent of other non-Christians, including Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists.
So, what's with the Baptist waistlines? Given that Baptists tend to eschew vices like smoking and drinking, Ferraro says, "Baptists may find food one of the few available sources of earthly pleasures." I'm sure his tongue was planted firmly in cheek with that wisecrack. Our preference for organizing fellowships around "comfort foods" probably has more to do with it. As Homer Simpson so eloquently put it on his way to a First Church of Springfield picnic: "If God didn't want us to eat in church, he'd have made gluttony a sin."
"America is becoming known as a nation of gluttony and obesity, and churches are a feeding ground for this problem," Ferraro says. "If religious leaders and organizations neglect this issue, they will contribute to an epidemic that will cost the health-care system millions of dollars and reduce the quality of life for many parishioners."
Anyone up for a power walk around the parking lot?
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