Salvation for Unhealthy Diets

Churchgoers hoping to improve their eating habits may now look to
their place of worship for help.

Marci Campbell, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, has developed a nutritional program designed to
be implemented in churches. It's dubbed the "5-a-Day" program after the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration's suggestion that people consume at
least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables.

Statistics show that for African-Americans in North Carolina, the
risk of cancer--especially forms, such as colon cancer, which are
influenced by eating habits--is increasing. So Campbell recruited 50
predominantly African-American churches there and instituted her program
in half of them. She gave each member of the participating congregations
printed materials on how to eat a healthful diet; involved them in
so-called "enabling" activities, such as growing community vegetable
gardens; and set up "reinforcing" activities, providing the churches with
health advisers and asking pastors to preach about nutritional issues. A
year later, she reports in the American Journal of Public Health, the
intervention group consumed one more daily serving of fruit than before,
and two years later, 33% met the 5-a-Day goal, compared to 23% at the
study's start.

Non-churchgoers may want to look to places they frequent, such as
work, to institute a similar program. But people seem to have better luck
learning good nutrition in church. Explains Campbell: "Churches are
stable over a longer period of time. They have stronger social networks.
They're a wonderful place to create change."