A recent study suggests that religion “could be” a risk factor for obesity. What is the value of the discovery that something “could be” this or that? I can identify an unlimited number of things that “could” do this or that, and I wouldn’t have to kill a single lab mouse to list all sorts of such possibilities. However, because the topic is religion, the study’s latest finding “maybe yes, maybe no” garnered a lot of what I think is unwarranted attention.

Many writers have expressed their disdain for religion; Some of my favorites include Robert Green Ingersoll, HL Mencken, Friedrich Nietzsche, Madeline Murray O’Hair, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. However, not many religious skeptics have done it from a limited health and wellness perspective. This, I like to imagine, is my specialty! So I’m happy to offer a REAL wellness perspective on the question, “Can religion make you fat?”

However, before providing this perspective, let me summarize the study that looked at the link between religion and obesity, conducted at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The research involved monitoring 2,400 men and women over a period of 18 years. (Details on the study of religion and fat are available in an article entitled “Can Religion Get You Fat?” In “The Week,” March 25, 2011.) Highlights include the following:

* The faithful seem to equate gluttony with piety. Praise the butter and pass the ice cream. The potlucks and coffee and donut gatherings after worship don’t seem to be helpful for the “bottom line.”

* Church attendance is a sedentary way to spend a good portion of Sunday morning – biking, jogging, or walking nature trails would be more physically uplifting and possibly more “spiritually.”

* Young people who go to church are 50 percent more likely to become obese in middle age than those who reject religion.

Why are parishioners more likely to be fatter than the average infidel, like me? The authors offer a rather unconvincing explanation, almost absurd in nature and difficult to take seriously. Yet here it is: “Being religious is associated with doing good works and those who do good works reward themselves by eating excessively.”

Can you believe it? It is almost as entertaining as Newt Gingrich’s explanation of marital infidelities caused by his overwork, fueled in turn by his intense patriotism!

Wait, hold your hat – it gets even more ridiculous. “It’s because of the marriage,” explained another scholar associated with the study. Kenneth F. Ferraro of Purdue University told CNN: “Weight gain is common after marriage.”

That’s weird. Don’t infidels also marry? Why are heretics not fat in middle age? Surely some are, but the headline of the study did not say: “Can Religious Skepticism Keep You In Shape?”

Not surprisingly, there is NO evidence that religion CAUSES weight gain. Unfortunately, you have to read the tabloid headlines below before this fact is finally acknowledged.

So to end the incredible suspense, my answer to the question, “Can religion get fat?” It is “no more than any other sedentary activity based on blind faith in ridiculous superstitions.” Dogma won’t make you fat, it will only reinforce the tendencies you already have toward being critical, irrational, petty, judgmental, and gullible.