How faith leaders like me can help address America’s obesity epidemic

Many factors drive America’s obesity epidemic — environment, genetics, eating habits, and more. Solving the problem isn’t solely about getting people to lose weight. What’s also needed is overcoming the stigma and systemic bias directed at people living with obesity.

Most people are dealing with a world of emotional stress. Being too heavy can feel like holding an anchor when you need wings.

As a pastor, my challenge is to help start conversations that put people on paths to value, respect, and love themselves. Following that path isn’t easy. People falter and find their way back, only to falter again. This is the nature of human beings. The journey is essential — starting is the hardest part.

I’ve seen how an approach that starts with empathy and understanding can inspire change and create space to address some of the toughest challenges our nation faces. During the pandemic, as chair of the Conference of National Black Churches, I helped mobilize its faith network to overcome Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy, which was rife in the Black community. We worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to launch a nationwide education campaign, training 5,000 pastors and vaccinating more than 2 million people.

This effort worked because faith leaders listened carefully to people and showed them that we were open to their perspectives, and that we were committed to helping them see the value in each of them that we saw. We helped them understand that their health and their family’s health are an important part of their lives, their happiness, and their sense of fulfillment. We challenged and delegitimized false narratives about Covid and stigma around the vaccines — but we weren’t judgmental. We didn’t tell anyone what was right or wrong, but communicated in ways that were sensitive to the fears grounded in the Black community’s long trauma with America’s medical system.

Once people got motivated for themselves, we gave them tools to influence and motivate their neighborhoods and communities. We’re taking the same approach with voting, using our national network to engage the Black community by listening and motivating people to ensure they have a seat at the table when decisions are made that affect their lives.

Faith leaders can do this for obesity, too.

Churches are sacred spaces in which to have open, honest conversations about self-realization and self-affirmation. Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, N.Y., where I am the senior pastor, runs an 18-week program called Operation Change focused on Black and other minority women who need to break the vicious cycle of joint pain, cardiometabolic diseases, physical inactivity, and depression that are linked to excess weight. The program offers information, leads group movement sessions, and holds one-on-one conversations with each participant to give her a voice. Building trust brings these women into a community where they feel accepted and can start to take the first steps toward making lifestyle, behavior, and medical changes that can improve their health.

Some people start to adjust how they eat and exercise by simply being heard. Others see the value of seeking professional counseling and learn to ask for the help they need managing less-than-healthy lifestyle and behavior choices. Many will need and seek medical support. Weight loss surgery can be an option, but it has risks. New anti-obesity medications are showing tremendous benefits beyond weight loss in reducing the risk of heart disease and diabetes.

The cost of medical intervention can be a significant barrier to losing weight. Faith leaders must challenge health providers, insurers, and leaders in government to eliminate the barriers to broader support for counseling and treatment services for people who need them.

Treating and managing obesity must be an urgent national priority. This disease doesn’t only drive up health care system costs — it can also drain self-esteem and crush the capacity to earn a living. New public-private partnerships can learn from the progress faith leaders achieved during the Covid-19 pandemic and scale outreach efforts to people with obesity through organizations people trust.

Reverend Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson is the Senior Pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon, N.Y., chair of the Conference of National Black Churches, and chair of the board of the National Action Network.