To refresh your memory, he found that nine states are in the top 10 rankings for both religiousness and obesity, with Oklahoma being one of them — ninth in loving God, sixth in loving fried foods on a stick.
Turns out, Covell may be onto something, now that a study from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine found essentially the same thing. According to the study, which tracked 2,433 people over an 18-year period, young adults who consider themselves religious are “50 percent more likely to be obese by middle age after adjusting for differences in age, race, sex, education, income and baseline body mass index.”
While the Northwestern report did not speculate as to why that is, Covell doesn’t hold back. Wrote the author, “the religious promise of a new body after death may lead believers to neglect the bodies they have here on earth.”
Remember, churchgoers: Thy body is God’s temple. And now that the sermon has ended, we’ll race you to the lobby for doughnuts! Then off to the gluttony-trough buffet line!
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2011.