Helping people develop healthier exercise and eating habits is moving from gyms, worksites and online communities into houses of worship.
Sally Squires, who writes the Lean Plate Club™ blog, explained to WTOP what prompted faith-based organizations to get involved in health promotion as well as how effective it is.
“Almost every religious group is getting into this act,” Squires said.
In March, the American Public Health Association published a supplement to its journal about some of the many faith-based public health partnerships that exist today and showed programs that occur in a wide range of religious groups from churches to temples. And it’s not limited to the U.S.
“One of the most interesting is something called Faith Activity and Nutrition, and it’s a study that’s known by the acronym FAN, and they’re finding some interesting things,” Squires told WTOP.
“What they’re finding is that when people get together to worship or to be a community of whatever faith they are, you already have a kind of captive audience that has similar interests,” Squires said.
“And they’re finding that if they can have the religious leaders talk about some of these things — about being healthier by eating well or by getting more activity — that it can really be effective.”
According to the results of the FAN study of 54 churches conducted over 12 months and published in the journal Health, Education and Behavior showed that consumption of fruit and vegetables could be increased significantly as could physical activity — although that was not quite as successful.
Ministers and pastors underscored the importance of healthy eating and physical activity from the pulpit.
“And then they started serving healthier foods at the churches,” Squires said. “And they found that this was really effective in helping people to change their habits.”
The research team noted that churches have the infrastructure to deliver food — like kitchens and dining halls — but they often don’t have facilities for physical activity.
“They’ve got the food part of it down fine,” Squires explained. “What they don’t … usually have is a basketball court or an exercise studio or something else where people could really work out.”
Through the years, there have been various faith-based partnerships with public health groups.
There were Anglican nuns who helped with the yellow fever epidemic in Tennessee in 1873.
The Daughters of Charity assisted leprosy patients for more than a century in the U.S. beginning in the late 1900s and working with the U.S. Public Health Service.
In World War II, Anglican Sisters of St. John the Divine teamed with the British Public Health service to provide maternity care to low-income people in the East End of London.
