eg. it is unscientific so there is a theory that church goers become non-believers in science and biology.

A similar theory suggests that prayer has little effect against high carb diets.

It's the potato salad and the hot dogs.

That involve cookies or doughnuts. At many churches, church activities involve food. While eating at these activities alone might not make one obese, I think that it reinforces the idea that there should be food involved while doing nearly anything.

Food between Sunday school and services. There might be food after services that may be provided by members or the church itself. Bible study and youth group activities often involve some kind of food too. There might be several church celebrations that involve either potlucks or church provided meals. Church fundraisers often involve bake sales. Food is a big part of many churches.

not religious at all!

Yep, and the Southern Baptists of my youth threw a fried chicken dinner every Valentines day so their youth wouldn't be tempted to go to any sinful dances and do any gyrating with the opposite sex. Pot lucks seemed to be the preferred option to anything they wanted to prevent the youth from enjoying. The only sin they indorse is gluttony.

When I was in Catholic grade school, our fundraisers were usually bake sales. Once a year, we also sold donuts. With four kids, my parents had a freezer full of donuts.

Rich people in the big city are thin and atheist.

Out in the sticks, notsomuch.

But for anyone who has ever tried to battle a bunch of Baptists for a piece of KFC the correlation is obvious.

To be honest, I would imagine that it has to do with the most religious parts of the country also culturally having the most fattening diet.

So much of religious teaching for young people is about ignoring your body's needs or hating your body as sinful. Young women are told that being attractive and desirable is a sin, because it causes men to sin. Neglected bodies are a natural consequence.

In church culture the one vice nobody criticizes is gluttony, even though it's a deadly sin if you read that book where they keep the dozen proof texts they know.

gluttony is acceptable while most everything else is sinful.

Both can be responses to a personal sense of loss and emotional emptiness.

My mother is obsessed with food. If there is a bucket of fried chicken she has to touch and handle every single piece before she takes one. If there is food on my plate she has to touch that. Like she can't help herself.

When she goes into a grocery store she will be in there for at least a couple of hours. Even if she only needs one or two things. And when she leaves her fingerprints will be on every item in that store.

Her mother was the same way. When I was a kid we used to take her mother shopping because she didn't drive and when she would finally get through that entire store and we were getting ready to check out we would turn our heads for a second and she would be right back at the start of the store beginning the process all over again.

I have seen this food obsession stuff before. Never really thought about the religious connection.

Don

Edit: Almost forgot this part. I was obese during my childhood and early as an adult. After I got married and moved further away from my religious family I gradually lost weight until my weight has become normal for my height which is where I am at today. Weird, huh?

Might it mean a whole lot more time just sitting in pews? Is that time that non-religious people spend moving around?

If folks around you are obese then you tend to become obese. (of if you hang out with drunks you tend to become a drunk, hang out with smokers, et al.)

Eating too much food is not as sinful as smoking and drinking I guess.

to the phrase "sweet Jesus"

I live in an area where I see a lot of young Mormon missionaries. I have never seen any of them that were overweight.

I'm a fat bastard and have not a single religious bone buried deep beneath my adipose layers. Still doesn't invalidate data that shows more religious people are more likely to be obese. Correlation is not a guarantee but a generalization.

I suspect the reasons are already covered. Religiosity correlates strongly with non-urban living and with lack of educational attainment too, both of which are also correlated with obesity (and no that can't be refuted by tales of fundamentalist 3% body fat PhD's who live downtown). I suspect these are linked not discrete independent variables. The less you can walk in daily life to a varied range of food choices while circulating among a diverse and cosmopolitan population and considering their views with critical thinking skills, the more likely you are to be both fat and in unchallenged possession of your childhood religious indoctrination.

So they are fat but live longer. I thought being fat was supposed to be bad for you. It also had the ridiculous statement that maybe the cause of this is that "unhealthy food" -- whatever that means --- is served at religious gatherings. So when we are surrounded 24/7 by "unhealthy food" they are going to blame a once or twice a week gathering for being fat. Yes, you are right, anecdotes.

Not to mention that those missionaries spend their days walking door-to-door and riding bicycles all around town.

But African-Americans have both higher rates of obesity and church attendance than the population at large. And both are true again with African American women in particular.

http://www.cdc.gov/Features/dsObesityAdults/

The white obesity rate is about 24 percent. It's actually higher among white men than white women. But the rate in the African-American community is 50 percent higher at about 36 percent. And black women have a more than 7 percent edge over black men in this regard (32 percent to 39 percent).

When it comes to church attendance, you see similar variations. African-Americans report 55 percent church attendance (as do Republicans, which is interesting since there's very little overlap there). While the white attendance rate is 41 percent. You see a similar gap between men and women as well, with women reporting 47 percent attendance rate and men 39 percent.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/141044/americans-church-attendance-inches-2010.aspx

So there probably is some significance in these numbers, though I don't know how much.

Poor/uneducated people tend to be obese and more religious.

That may be enough to skew it.

...with food. Basically, if you have mental health issues you are more likely to be religious and more likely to overeat.