Obese atheists and marriageability

According to the Gallup Inc., "Very religious Americans are more likely to practice healthy behaviors than those who are moderately religious or nonreligious."

Gallup declared concerning the study which measured the degree to which religiosity affects health practices: "Generalized linear model analysis was used to estimate marginal scores all five reported metrics after controlling for age (in years), gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, education (number of years), log of income, and region of the country... Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey Jan. 2-July 28, 2010, with a random sample of 554,066 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling."

The Gallup study gives some insight into the above average health habits of the very religious and not necessarily the health habits of atheists. The reason is that the Gallup organization defines a non-religious as a person where "Religion is not an important part of daily life and church/synagogue/mosque attendance occurs seldom or never. This group constitutes 29.7% of the adult population." While many Western atheists are non-religious, not all non-religious people are atheists.

Gallup further declares:

“

Very religious Americans make healthier choices than their moderately religious and nonreligious counterparts across all four of the Healthy Behavior Index metrics, including smoking, healthy eating, and regular exercise. Smoking is one area of particular differentiation between the very religious and less religious Americans, with the nonreligious 85% more likely to be smokers than those who are very religious.

”

Obese atheists have fewer dating opportunities

According to the abstract for a paper presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association: "Obese individuals have fewer dating opportunities, marry later and marry less desirable partners."

Studies indicate that atheists are a minority in the population. Studies also indicate that people tend to marry people with similar values or who resemble their parents or themselves. In addition, the Bible teaches Christians not to marry a non-Christian (The Bible also teaches a believer to stay married to a non-believer if you are already married). Also, interfaith marriages often have greater marital friction and interfaith marriages historically have had higher rates of divorce. Therefore, it would not be surprising if obese atheists find it more difficult to find marriage partners and if atheist/theist marriages also have increased marital friction and higher rates of divorce since these two worldviews are so different.

See also

• Atheism and obesity
• Atheism and health
• Atheism and depression
• [[Atheism and suicide]