Robert L. Brown is a professor of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has written about Buddhism, asceticism, health and the body.

Jill Dubisch is a professor of anthropology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. She has written about religious aspects of the health food movement in a journal about magic, witchcraft and the supernatural.

Mark Roehling is an assistant professor of labor and industrial relations at Michigan State University in Lansing. In 1999 he published a study that found that overweight and obese people were discriminated against – often openly – in the workplace.

Gillian Feeley-Harnik is a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has written about religion and food and the role food played in early Judaism and Christianity.

Mary Louise Bringle is chair of the humanities division of Brevard College in Brevard, N.C. She wrote of her eating disorder in “Confessions of a Glutton” in the Oct. 25, 1989, issue of The Christian Century.

Ravindra S. Khare is a professor of anthropology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He has written about Hindu gastrosemantics.

Francine Prose is the author of 10 books, including Gluttony, part of the “Seven Deadly Sins” series (Oxford University Press, 2003). She is a distinguished writer in residence at Bard College in New York. She lives in New York City.

Jualynne Dodson is a visiting professor at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Michigan State University in East Lansing. She has written extensively about African-American Christians and food.

Kenneth Ferraro is a professor of sociology and psychological sciences at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. In 1998, he published the findings of a study that showed that religious participation is associated with higher body weight. His study of 3,600 people found that Southern Baptists are heaviest, with Jews, Muslims and Buddhists less likely to […]