Religiosity has a positive effect on human health
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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A group of researchers from the University of New South Wales in Australia recently found that religious people are more susceptible to obesity than atheists.
This applies to all major world religions, but most clearly the relationship manifests itself in the case of Islam and Christianity. At the same time, in parallel, scientists have discovered that the presence of religion of any kind has a beneficial effect on human health. It turns out that people who believe in God on an average of 4% -5% are less likely to get sick.
The reason for these phenomena is partly that, according to many religious teachings, frankly harmful things - the use of alcohol, red meat, gluttony, and the idle lifestyle that sometimes leads to the acquisition of bad habits, can be banned directly by the creeds themselves. Also, the world's largest religions prohibit premarital sex, as well as in general, such a thing as fornication. Propagating monogamy, religions contribute to a significant extent to containment of the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Also, people who believe in God are usually less exposed to stress, which has a positive effect on their cardiovascular system. Obesity is just one of the potential disadvantages - a believer usually has a 7% greater risk of achieving an elevated body mass index, which will just be characterized as obesity.
In particular, many priests lead a sedentary and inactive way of life, not paying due attention to physical exercises. Refusal of sports very often occurs and at simple believing people already after 30-35 years. In particular, Christians denying the possibility of resolving conflicts with the help of physical strength, as a rule, completely lose the impetus to develop their body, giving much more attention to maintaining the soul balance.
In general, scientists recognize that, despite some disadvantages of being a believer, it is useful for health - about what religion there would be. If there is every reason to believe that people who believe in God live an average of 7-12 years longer than atheists, but this is only an approximate calculation.
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