Kids Raised Religiously Have Better Health, New Study Finds

The Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health published a new study that found that kids and teens who are raised religiously or spiritually, tend to have better physical and mental health as they age. 

The study was published last week in the American Journal of Epidemiology and finds that people who pray or meditate on their own time were at lower risk of substance abuse and depression later on in life.

The researchers looked at data from sample sizes ranging from 5,681 people to 7,458 people. Their participants were from the Nurses’ Health Study II and its next-generation Growing Up Today Study (GUTS) and were observed over the course of some 14 years. 

According to the study’s abstract the group was interested in “the associations of religious involvement in adolescence (including religious service attendance and prayer or meditation) with a wide array of psychological well-being, mental health, health behavior, physical health, and character strength outcomes in young adulthood.”

The researchers were able to draw the conclusion from their data that children who attended religious services at least once a week were about 18% more likely to report being happier in their 20s than those who did not attend services. The same children were also around 30% more likely to do volunteer work and 33% less likely to use drugs during young adulthood as well.

The…