Can Fat Fight Back?
I am fat. I do not exercise enough. I eat too much. I lose weight. Relax. Stop the rigorous discipline and the weight slips back on. I understand a little of why I overeat - but I am not sure it is just a case of eating too much and not exercising enough - although those are key factors. The facts are irritating - but they cannot be denied.
I do think there is a conspiracy amongst those who manufacture and supply our food. Only recently have we discovered as consumers the huge risk to our health posed by hydrogenated fats. Apparently our bodies cannot process these. America has banned them because they are linked to obesity and heart disease. Every few weeks there is another scare about additives, preservatives and colourings which are carcinogenic or increase sensitivity to chronic conditions like Asthma and ADHD. So many of our meat and fish products have hormones and colourings added which we then eat. It's enough to make me a vegan. We are the only mammals who drink milk after weaning - and we no longer graze - but munch huge quantities irregularly.
Healthy eating is highly desirable. It is a must - but - how healthy are the foods we are being encouraged to buy? I am sceptical - and if it wasn't for the well-documented long term health issues I will potentially bring on myself, I would describe myself as contentedly obese. However, the health risks are there and I would be very ill advised to ignore them.
I strongly suspect obesity is the new 'smoking' and considerable pressure will be brought to bear on the general public to reduce weight and get fitter. I feel I can use this - as long as it is not too humiliating!
Maybe I should join "Weight Watchers"? I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago who looks wonderful and has lost loads of weight with them. She found the support of other people also trying to lose really helped her. I am very, very tempted to give it a go. It's not just a matter of health, it's also about the good stewardship of my body, mind and spirit. These gifts are precious to me - and I don't want to abuse them by putting my body under unnecessary pressure. Petrifying to think that I must do this and it will involve a change to my food-orientated lifestyle. What could I do to make this a success this time when I have failed in the past? Maybe the blogs will help.
It also helps me if I can attack a problem on a lot of levels. Losing weight would be one of the ultimate expressions of taking myself seriously - it is saying that I want to look after myself as well as be there for others. Remembering I am made in the image of God is important - but I have always taken comfort in the fact that there was no reason why a fat God couldn't be an intellectually and spiritually defensible option! I guess, retrospectively, this is an angels dancing on a pinhead approach to self-justification!
It was Tertullian, I think, who first got excited about humans being made in the image of God. He saw humans resembling the image and likeness of God in their spiritual and physical form. The Reformers, in the sixteenth century, rejected this notion believing that God's image in humanity was severely marred by the Original Sin of Adam and Eve's Fall from Grace in "Genesis". The evolving Liberal views of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries diluted the idea of sin and so made the doctrine of imago dei into an all-embracing capacity or potential for God.
In the twenty-first century, Christian Ethics rests on an understanding of humans as having value because they are in some way representative of the divine image. One of the many aims of the Church is to encourage each individual towards maturity - in Christian language this might be described as achieving a likeness to Christ - embracing fully our unique vocation in life.
A vocation is, I think, like a fingerprint. It is the unique trace our presence on the planet leaves when we are no longer around.
If I can accept I am fully made in the image of God, and am, as the Psalmist reminds me, 'beautifully and wonderfully made' do I need to lose weight? Can't I just settle comfortably into being the Highlands answer to "The Vicar of Dibley" and have done with it? Probably, if that is my unique vocation - but if there is something else niggling underneath then the chances are that at some psychological level there are issues I need to address.
If I wish to be imago dei with an active life then clearly the weight needs to start to come off. If I don't feel that is a significant part of what I am called to be - then I guess a short, bulging life might be justifiable - although the evidence, biblically, psychologically and ethically may well beg to differ. Can I sit smugly eating and piling on the pounds from the comfort of my westernised perspective or do I have an obligation to acknowledge and share my belief in the image of God with others and act on it in ways which take active, and positive care of my mind, body and spirit?
It's going to be an ouch moment - but I think the answer is yes. The urge to reach for a packet of shortbread is huge...
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