The Impact of Religiosity on Health Behaviors and Obesity among African Americans

Abstract

Religion has been associated with good physical health and may represent a protective factor against overweight and obesity. This study explored dimensions of religiosity associated with health behaviors—eating habits and physical activity—and obesity in the African American population. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were analyzed for 3,620 African American adults ages 28 to 34. A structural equation model (path model) revealed that high levels of church attendance combined with religious practice encouraged healthy eating habits. However, increasing time spent in prayer while making religion more important in life was associated with poor eating habits. More frequent church attendance and prayer were implicated in heightened levels of obesity, suggesting that various dimensions of religiosity were constructed differently with health behaviors and obesity.

KEYWORDS:

• Obesity
• religiosity
• religious denominations
• fast foods
• physical activity

Notes

Support for this research was provided by grants from East Carolina University. This research uses data from Add Health, a program directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and funded by Grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health web site (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

^aMean.

^bStandard deviation.

^aIncludes Church of Christ, Church of God, Pentecostal/Assembly of God.

^bIncludes Christian Scientist, Jehovah Witness, Latter-Day Saints (Mormon).

^cIncludes Christian Church, Free Methodist/Methodist.

^dIncludes Congregational, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian.

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).