Going to church makes you fat.

[rug]

November 13, 2011 8:27PM

Please Reverend, Do Something About the Fat People

Post by Sarah Morice-Brubaker

There’s a piece by David Briggs in HuffPo on the various studies suggesting that the religious have a “weight problem.” What this means is that some people have done studies and concluded that there’s an association between being religious and being more prone to obesity.

One study suggests that:

participants were more likely to be obese the more religiously active they were. Each step of the way, from those never attending worship to those attending weekly, greater religious activity was associated with significantly higher rates of obesity.

Of course, another study, also referred to in Briggs’ article, suggests that obese women are less likely to attend religious services than “healthy weight” women. Sooooo… uh, greater religious activity is associated with higher rates of obesity, except when it isn’t?

I’m not hating on Briggs, but I’m dreading the actions of all those who will use this to conclude that being religiously observant actually makes you fatter, and that fat makes you less healthy, and that therefore congregations and ministers need to DO SOMETHING ABOUT ALL THE FAT PEOPLE! But rather than pick these findings apart, it might be easier to just go through and list the hypothetical conditions under which that call to DO SOMETHING might actually be compelling:

1. It might be compelling if associations and correlations said anything about causality. But they don’t. If they did, wearing panties would put you at a sharply increased risk for becoming female, and burying yourself in dirt would put you at an increased risk for turning into a carrot. Now I suppose that living in a house with electricity does probably make you more likely to use an electric shaver, but it’s still a leap to go from there to the conclusion that everyone else has a “facial hair problem.” Age, income, overall health, and ancestry can all affect body weight, and they may also correlate with different patterns of religious activity. Perhaps these things were controlled for. (There isn’t a link to the study as far as I can tell.) If so, that’s great! But could you find confirmation that they did? I couldn’t, and until I can, I shall hold off on concluding that there’s any sort of causal relationship here. If the more religious are indeed fatter, absent further information, it does not follow that being religious makes you fatter because of LATKES!

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/sarahmoricebrubaker/5379/please_reverend%2C_do_something_about_the_fat_people/

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Eating in excess makes me go to church. Goes with saying. n/t

[Taverner]

2. Wow - The Religious are telling us not to confuse correlation with causation

That's a change...

[MADem]

3. "Conservapedia" (whatever that is) started this w/opposite assertion about atheists

Penn, of Penn and Teller, discusses the issue:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ-4r8Iujes

Do people really amuse themselves with these arguments?

I think people who eat too much, in general, are too fat. There are some cases where people have medical/endocrine or other hormonal issues... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ-4r8Iujes

[dmallind]

4. The writer of this cannot read all that well

bolding mine....

participants were more likely to be obese the more religiously active they were. Each step of the way, from those never attending worship to those attending weekly, greater religious activity was associated with significantly higher rates of obesity.

Of course, another study, also referred to in Briggs’ article, suggests that obese women are less likely to attend religious services than “healthy weight” women. Sooooo… uh, greater religious activity is associated with higher rates of obesity, except when it isn’t?

Soooo...uuhhh.. you lost your chain of reasoning in two short paragraphs? Since when did going to church mean all of and nothing but religious activity?

[trotsky]

5. Yes, it's very sloppy indeed. n/t