Despite a booming fitness industry, Americans in general (and Christians in particular) are still struggling with their health and fitness, and the Church isn’t talking about it enough.
It’s a topic that’s treated as taboo and impolite, but it’s obvious, we all see it, and the silence is serving no one. Several studies conducted over the last 15 years or so have made it crystal clear that religious people as a whole are more overweight than their secular counterparts – pastors in particular.
Kenneth F. Ferraro, a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Aging and the Life Course, conducted a study in 2006 entitled: “Does Religion Increase the Prevalence and Incidence of Obesity in Adulthood?” His conclusion can be summed up with this statement: religious commitment, especially when supported by a religious community, is linked to an increase in the rate of obesity. The study found that Church members were more likely than non-members to be more than 20% overweight and have, on average, higher total cholesterol and blood pressure than people who were not church members.
Northwestern University found that young people of a healthy weight who frequently participated in religious activities were twice as likely to become obese by middle age than their less religious peers.
In 2014, Deborah Lycett with Coventry University examined the body mass indexes (BMIs) of more than 7,000 people and found those of believers were almost a full point higher than those of atheists.
Then, in 2017, Karen Hye-Cheon Kim Yeary, Ph.D., from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences conducted a systematic literature review of other studies of religion and obesity and found a large body of data that confirmed the fact that the more religious a person is, the more likely they are to be overweight.
Pastor Paul Tripp, in his book Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church, writes, “You see, the stewardship of our physical body is not an addition to our gospel ministry calling; it is a significant part of it… I know I am stepping on toes here, but I am convinced that widespread church and ministry leadership gluttony is robbing us of both gospel consistency and physical energy.”
The problem is clear, but the solution? Not so much. We get into dangerous territory when we start talking about what is acceptable and unacceptable when it comes to a person’s body. It’s easy to make assumptions that lack context and have the potential to seriously hurt others.
We are called to partner with God in building his kingdom and bringing about his promises, but we are not infinite, self-rejuvenating beings and poor health and fitness further reduce the limited energy we do have. So should the Church be doing more to push back against this problem?
Why is this True?
It would be easy to just point a finger at the standard American lifestyle of not walking enough, sitting far too much, excessive screen time, and easy access to abundant, low-quality food, but those issues aren’t unique to Christians.
Another consideration that doesn’t seem to answer the whole question is that food and meals together are a huge part of how we connect – as humans and as Christians. Culturally, junk food is overlooked as the problem that it is, and you want your fellow congregants to enjoy the food you bring to the potluck, so naturally you’ll opt for the most buttery, sweet, and salty recipe in your cookbook. It’s always just a little uncomfortable to turn away someone’s offer of food when you’re trying to be deliberate about what you eat, but this makes up a proportionately small number of our total meals so it doesn’t seem like this is the real problem either.
A final attempt at a simple answer might be this: acceptable Christian gluttony – a sin not taken seriously – an acceptable form of idolatry. The church tends to focus on other potential addictions like drugs, alcohol, or sex, but when all of the vices people usually turn to are off the table, where are Christians supposed to go for a quick guilt-free dopamine hit? Is it possible that the sin of using food as a way to manage stress and emotions is one that tends to get overlooked?
I don’t think there is a black-and-white answer to this, and fitness professionals must be careful not to be reductionistic about such a complex issue. The size of a person is never a sin. Some overweight people are eating less than those at a healthy weight, and some thin people may be within the realm of sin with their overeating even though they have a faster metabolism that masks it.
God designed us as whole beings – our body, our mind, our spirit, our health – it’s all intertwined because we are all intertwined. So while the Bible doesn’t call the Church as a whole to be filled with triathletes and bodybuilders, in a cultural environment that is pulling us mindlessly toward disease and obesity, the Bible does call us to take steps to work against it.
A Complex Issue
There is no universal, clear-cut line at which point moving too far in the wrong direction with your weight or health becomes sin. In a discussion about what is a healthy or unhealthy weight, you ought to examine yourself and not others. It is too easy to look at another person who is overweight and judge that person, but there are many potential reasons for a person to be overweight.
Some people have medical conditions that can contribute to their obesity, such as a thyroid disorder, while others can gain weight as a side effect of taking certain medications. Others struggle with emotional traumas, like depression or abuse, and they eat out of pain and despair. Then there are women who have had several children in a short period of time and are struggling to balance all the challenges of life, often on limited sleep, and lose weight at the same time. There are countless examples of legitimate reasons why someone might be carrying a few extra pounds.
For that reason, this process doesn’t begin with diet, exercise, and habit change. It begins with getting on your knees and prayerfully looking to your Savior. Pray for wisdom about where you need to grow and for the self-control and discipline to carry it out.
There are always outliers and exceptions, and I would never judge someone for being overweight – I have often struggled with it myself – but the truth is that most overweight people, most of the time, just plain eat too much and move too little.
But my point isn’t that Christians should become known as a bunch of buffed-up fitness nuts, and this conversation has nothing to do with big muscles and toned midsections. Overweight, for the purposes of this conversation, doesn’t mean “anyone who doesn’t have six-pack abs.” We’re not using the same definition of overweight that you would get from a vain and status-driven fitness industry.
My point is that you should recognize your body and soul as one cohesive whole, and then make decisions that counteract an unhealthy lifestyle because you love your Savior and want to be the most effective tool possible in your calling. It’s not about fat shaming or being legalistic, it’s about joyfully living in the gospel.
What about 1 Timothy 4:8?
A Christian-friendly reason to backburner fitness that’s often used is 1 Timothy 4:8 (For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things…), but I think that’s misguided. “Physical training” when this was written would have referred to intense training for sport or war – not going for a walk to counteract the effects of sitting all day. Just plain taking care of your body falls under stewarding the gifts you’ve been given.
I believe the ‘value’ described here is not talking about the general health benefits that come from physical activity. The vast majority of the benefits of physical exercise can be had just by eating well and walking 10,000 steps a day, and I suspect the people Timothy was writing to were getting plenty of steps and didn’t have a problem with hitting up the Taco Bell drive-thru at 2 am.
No, I believe the value described has far more to do with the character traits that are developed through hard, physical training. I’m talking about traits like discipline, consistency, perseverance, self-control, and grittiness. As you seek to follow Jesus you don’t want to be limited by a lack of self-control or discipline, and these are the kinds of skills that are only developed by expressing them. In this way, getting off the couch to go for a run when you don’t feel like it and choosing the green beans when you want the mac and cheese are actually strengthening those characteristics within yourself.
If you are struggling with your weight, don’t look at it as a sin that you need to repent of. This only leads to shame. Even if the choices that brought you to this place are a product of sin in your life, Romans 8:1 tells us there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Rather, treat it as a problem to solve and look to your Savior for the wisdom, strength, and self-control to navigate it.
How Do We Fix It?
Humans in general, and maybe Christians in particular, tend to get wrapped up in dualistic thinking – reducing all problems down to just two options: right and wrong, but this type of thinking leaves no room for the nuance required to navigate the much more complicated truth. A better question than “Is it sinful to be overweight” might be something like asking yourself, when faced with a decision related to food or exercise, “Considering my present situation, is this decision going to be helpful or unhelpful?”
At the same time, I believe the Church has a responsibility to show Christians that taking care of their body is not an ancillary issue, and how to avoid the pitfalls of the fitness industry that lead to body image issues, self-idolatry and shame.
Is the best solution here, then, for the Church to create programs that incorporate physical fitness into their congregation’s spiritual practice? Should they offer only healthy options when they provide food, or encourage members to bring better choices to their potlucks? I don’t have a perfect answer, but the first step is to stop avoiding it, stop treating it as taboo, and start talking about it.
Making healthy food choices is hard living in a culture where delicious, chemically engineered, overly marketed, cheap, and accessible junk food is the norm, and eating food as God delivered it to us is considered “dieting.” Making a conscious decision to exercise when the bed is warm and comfy or it would be so much faster to take the car is always difficult – especially at first. But the certainty of God’s promises doesn’t guarantee an easy life where no action has to be taken.
That certainty is exactly what should motivate you to face difficult challenges and take action that moves you, and those around you, toward God’s call on your lives. As you do, be cognizant of the fact that you have a mind that tends to seek comfort and avoid hard things and that you have an enemy working against you who doesn’t want you to be healthy, clear-headed, and effective in your calling. If you submit your life to Jesus and lay your health at his feet, I have no doubt he will lead you in the right direction.
References:
“Does Religion Increase the Prevalence and Incidence of Obesity in Adulthood?”
“Faith and Fat: Religious Youths More Likely to Be Obese by Mid-Life”
“Strong Religious Beliefs May be Associated With Obesity”
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Nate Birner
Featured Image by Joachim Schnürle from Pixabay
[…] Open the full article on the kingdomwinds.com site […]