Thin Within is a Christian-based weight loss program established in 1975 with groups nationwide. It is based in Louisville, Ky.

Read a Jan. 4, 2013, article about the obesity epidemic in American churches.

Read a Nov. 10, 2011, article from the Huffington Post about the results of a study that showed a correlation between religious involvement and weight gain.

Read a March 25, 2011, article from NBC News about the link between attending religious events and obesity in young adults.

Visit the website of the Material History of American Religion Project to read a paper by Daniel Sack on the meanings behind the church potluck supper. See also an interview with Sack about his book, Whitebread Protestants.

Armand L. Mauss, a professor emeritus of sociology and religious studies at Washington State University who now lives in Irvine, Calif., has written extensively on Mormonism. His most recent book is All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (University of Illinois Press, 2003).

Jenifer Kunz, an associate professor of sociology at West Texas A&M University, has researched the attitudes of 21st-century members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints toward polygamy.

Edwin B. Firmage is a law professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City who has defended polygamists. A monogamist and a great-great-grandson of polygamist Brigham Young, Firmage teaches constitutional law. He is co-author of Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (University of Illinois Press, […]

R. Collin Mangrum is a law professor at Creighton University in Omaha who teaches on church and state issues and on the history of American legal thought. He is co-author of Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (University of Illinois Press, 1988).