The Effects of Religious Attendance and Obesity on Health by Race/Ethnicity

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this paper are to examine the effects of religion and obesity on health and determine how the relationship varies by racial/ethnic groups with data from the Panel Study of American Race and Ethnicity (PS-ARE). METHODS: Using ordinal logistic regression, the effects of religion and obesity on self-rated health and how the relationship varies by racial/ethnic groups are investigated. Additionally, to determine whether certain ethnic groups are more impacted by the frequency of religious attendance and obesity, whites, blacks, and Hispanics are analyzed separately with ordinal logistic regression. RESULTS: When obesity was added in focal relationship between religious services attendance and self-rated health strengthened this focal relationship which is a suppression effect between religious services attending and self-rated health adding obesity. For BMI is also significantly associated with decreased odds of reporting better health–normal weight (OR = 2.99; 95% CI = 2.43–3.67) and overweight (OR = 2.19; 95% CI = 1.79–2.68) compared to obese. Subjects who attend religious services 1–2 time a year (OR = 1.30; 95% CI = 1.04–1.62) and 1–3 times a month (OR = 1.28; 95% CI = 1.05–1.57) are associated with increased odds of reporting better health. In whites, attending religious services 1–2 times a year are associated with increased odds of reporting better health (OR = 1.48; 95% CI = 1.09–2.00) and 1–3 times a month are also associated with increased odds of reporting health (OR = 1.34; 95% CI = 1.02–1.78) compared to never attending religious attendance. The frequency of religious services attendance of blacks and Hispanics are not associated with self-rated health. For BMI, being white is more positively associated with increased odds of reporting better health than black and Hispanic subjects. Although white subjects are less likely to attend religious services more frequently than black and Hispanic subjects, the influence on self-rated health in white subjects is more evidenced than other racial/ethnic groups. CONCLUSIONS: Although it was not proven that the association between participation in religious services and self-rated health is mediated by obesity, the research shows the suppression effect of obesity between participation in religious services and self-rated health.