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Researchers from the Northwestern University noticed there’s something strange about religion: it’s making people fatter.
We don’t recall any of the commandments saying “thou shall eat chocolate cake,” but an unusual new study has found that people who regularly attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to battle obesity by middle age.
God only knows why. The scientists sure don’t.
“We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity,” said Matthew Feinstein, the study’s lead investigator and a fourth-year student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It’s possible 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 and obesity.”
The study tracked nearly 2,500 men and women over 18 years. They filtered for age, race, sex, education, income and baseline body mass index. The last one’s important, because it shows that the religious were getting fatter, not that fat people were getting religious.
See also: Dear Lord, If You Can’t Make Me Skinny, Please Make My Friends Fat!