Religion and Obesity
Tuesday December 2, 2003
If gluttony is a deadly sin, why are higher rates of obesity associated with greater religious dedication? If America is a Christian Nation, why is America the fattest nation in the world? Should American Christians be a little more concerned about gluttony?
Jim Holt writes for the Boston Globe:
According to a 1998 Purdue University study, obesity is associated with higher levels of religious participation. (Broken down by creed, Southern Baptists have the highest body-mass index on average, Catholics are in the middle, and Jews and other non-Christians are the lowest.) When this finding was brought to the attention of the Reverend Jerry Falwell, he was unperturbed. "I know gluttony is a bad thing," Falwell said. "But I don't know many gluttons." That is one way out of the dilemma -- to deny that overweight people are necessarily sinful gluttons. But it could also be that gluttony is not really a sin.
True, maybe gluttony shouldn't be a sin, but at the very least one might wonder why Southern Baptists aren't sending more of the calories to people who don't have enough to eat. Even if gluttony isn't a sin, arguably eating more then you need while others go hungry could be.
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Comments
I think alot of fundamentalist Christians (Especially Protestants)use food as a form of self-medication. Their lifestyle is very strict and over-eating may not seem so sinful at the church bake sale.