The Chicago Sun Times brings us news of yet another correlative study, albeit one that is dead on, about how religion makes you fat. Specifically, protestant religion, even more specifically, being a baptist. Apparently vice, like energy, can neither be created nor destroyed. All the Baptists can do with no drinking, sex etc., is redirect their vice quota into chicken wings and Krispy Kreme. It actaully sounds like this is more than just a correlative study, Ferraro might have really done his homework here.

"America is becoming known as a nation of gluttony and obesity, and churches are a feeding ground for this problem," says 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.

"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," he says.

Ferraro's most recent study, published in the June issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, is a follow-up to a study he published in 1998, where he found there were more obese people in states with larger populations of folks claiming a religious affiliation than elsewhere -- particularly in states with the most Baptists.

So it's not surprising that Ferraro's latest study found that about 27 percent of Baptists, including Southern Baptists, North American Baptists, and Fundamentalist Baptist, were obese.

Surely there are several contributing factors to such a phenomenon, but when Ferraro accounted for geography (southern cooking is generally more high-caloric), race and even whether overweight folks were attracted to churches for moral support, the statistics still seem to indicate that some churches dispense love handles as well as the love of the Lord.
...
While some megachurches have fitness facilities and long have offered exercise classes as well as Bible studies, in most congregations you're still more likely to find a bake sale than a spinning class on any given Sunday.

Ferraro's study also found that about 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 were obese.

By contrast, about 1 percent of the Jewish population and less than 1 percent of other non-Christians, including Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others), were tipping the scales with commensurate gusto.

"In my mind, one of the distinctive things about Christianity, particularly American Protestant Christianity, is we don't have any [dietary] behavior codes," said Daniel Sack of Chicago, a historian and author of the 2000 book, Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture.

This map definitely makes a lot of sense. It's where the Baptists are. Oh, and they're still racist in Mississippi in addition to being fat.



Obesity, states with higher than national average of 21% by percent prevalence. The five states with the lowest rates are: Connecticut 17%, Rhode Island 17%, Vermont 17%, Massachusetts 16%, and Colorado at 14%.

Source: 1991-2001 Prevalence of Obesity Among U.S. Adults by State and 2001 Obesity and Diabetes Prevalence Among U.S. Adults, by Selected Characteristics. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 1991-2001; self-reported data. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available here and here.