Didn’t anyone ever consider bringing a fruit tray to the church picnic?

A recent study by Northwestern University Medicine said young adults who frequently attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to be obese by their middle ages compared to young adults with no religious involvement.

Matthew Feinstein, the study’s lead investigator, said in a press release they do not know necessarily why participating in religious activities is related to obesity, but these findings are good in seeing a group that could gain from obesity prevention.

Feinstein, who is a fourth year student at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, said in an e-mail that they studied 2,433 young adults, ages 20-32 in 1987, living in Birmingham, Ala., Chicago, Minneapolis, and Oakland, Calif. Since then, the participants have been going through regular checkups to look at risk factors such as weight, blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol levels.

“We found that young adults with frequent religious participation were 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age than young adults with no religious participation, even after we adjusted for variables such as age, race, sex, education, income and body mass index,” he said.

This is the first longitudinal study to look at the development of obesity in people with various degrees of religious involvement, according to the press release.

The research has yet to be released to the public, but it has been submitted and it will take a couple of months for it to get published, said Marla Paul, health science editor at Northwestern University.

Feinstein said it is important to realize the information found does not certainly say that being religious causes or leads to obesity and that the findings are “one of association, not causation.”

“Despite our findings of the association between religious participation and obesity, we still know that religious people tend to live longer and have better general health status than those who aren’t religious,” he said.

Feinstein said religious people typically do better in regard to their health, but it seems there is room for improvement in the area of obesity for religious communities.

“Given these findings, we believe that long-term initiatives geared toward preventing and treating obesity in the religious community may be useful,” he said.

Though they are not positive, Feinstein suspected it could be the role of “comfort foods” that are served at religious gatherings.

Jame Schaefer, an associate professor of theology, agreed maybe it is the unhealthy foods served at some of these activities.

Schaefer said in an e-mail that although she has not seen the study, she hopes that religious people take care of their bodies by consuming healthy food and drinking in moderation.

Olga Yakusheva, an assistant professor of economics, said in light of not being able to see the study, she does not believe attending religious services can make anyone gain weight.

“It is a known fact, for example, that married people are more likely to be overweight and obese than single people, and religious people are more likely to be married,” she said.

Yakusheva said obesity research is important, and this research is interesting because it could help us identify people at risk for obesity early on.

Feinstein said some people do argue that the association between religiosity and obesity is partially explained in that religious people tend to get married earlier, and this is certainly possible, and would merit further research.