14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists report in a new research paper that teens and young adults who are in the habit of attending religious functions at least once per week are 50 percent more likely to become fat by middle age.
Those who do not attend these activities are at a decreased risk of suffering from obesity at the same age, add researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
This is the first time experts conduct a longitudinal study seeking to assess the correlations between religion, lifestyle choices and fatness in the general population. The role of religious involvement in weight has not been studied before.
For the purpose of this investigation, young adults were defined as being 20 to 32 years old, while obesity was defined as a condition in which sufferers have a body mass index of 30 or higher.
“We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity, but the upshot is these findings highlight a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity prevention,” explains researcher Matthew Feinstein.
“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 investigator goes on to say.
Feinstein is a fourth-year student at the NU Feinberg School of Medicine, and also the lead investigator on the new study, PsychCentral reports. The work was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
Some 2,433 men and women were followed for more than 18 years for this study. This allowed experts the chance to compensate for a variety of other factors that may have interfered with religious people's weight. The scientists were looking for something that may have influenced them as a group.
“Obesity is the major epidemic that is facing the US population right now. We know that people with obesity have substantial risks for developing diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancer, and of dying much younger,” says Donald Lloyd-Jones, MD.
The expert, who was the senior author of the study, holds an appointment as a cardiologist at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH).
“So, we need to use all of the tools at our disposal to identify groups at risk and to provide education and support to prevent the development of obesity in the first place. Once the weight is on, it is much harder to lose it.” Lloyd-Jones concludes.
The research is being presented at the American Heart Association’s Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism/Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention Scientific Sessions 2011, in Atlanta, Georgia.