Church dinners are killing our community.
This has been an obvious, yet unaddressed, dilemma in the church for decades, especially the black church: regular churchgoers tend to be much more obese than their non-attending counterparts, says a medical scientific study.
According to the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, young adults who frequently attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age compared with those who don’t take part in any religious events.
“We don’t know why frequent religious participation is associated with development of obesity, but the upshot of these findings highlight a group that could benefit from targeted efforts at obesity prevention,” said Matthew Feinstein, the study’s lead investigator. “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.”
Feinstein says the study tracked 2,433 young men and women for 18 years in Chicago, Minneapolis, Birmingham, Ala., and Oakland, Calif. In the study, frequent religious participation meant attending at least one event per week.
From my personal experience being raised in the faith, black churches are notorious for stocking their after-church dinners full of high-fat, artery-clogging, intestinal-blocking, weight-gaining, sugar-laden fried foods and desserts with reckless abandon.
But there are other reasons, the study states.
Years ago, “church services ran long,” says Courtney Parker, the catering manager for the 20,000-member Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn,. “So the first thing you do is go eat, and then you go to sleep.”
Parker says he suspects there may be a historical connection between over-eating and going to church. In years gone by, so many things were taboo — but not eating, Parker told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Also, there is an apparent refusal to work out or participate in blood pumping activities to offset high-calorie meals that contributes to morbid obesity.
There is a caveat to this study, Feinstein assured. He said previous studiies have shown conclusively that regular churchgoers tend to smoke less, have better mental health and live longer than those who don’t go to church. –terry shropshire
