Obesity and Jesus

As a teenager I started smoking. In retrospect I'm aware that this was not the best of ideas, however like most smokers past and present I have plenty of excuses why I started...i.e. my friends smoked, I grew up watching my father smoke, I wanted to be popular. As I grew older the excuses were still there, I'm addicted, it helps me deal with stress, and I just simply enjoy it. Recently I have stopped smoking but it's not something that I have fully overcome. My reason for quitting smoking was a simple one... I was tired of hearing my wife tell me to quit. Her reasons seemed to be endless but the most valid of all her points was that it was unhealthy. I had no argument for that it was clearly damaging my body, and as a christian I've always been told that we are to keep our temple,"our body" clean.
During my life I was always surrounded by Christians that urged me to quit smoking, citing the same facts that this was unhealthy and therefore a sin. Honestly, I agree with them, we are consciously harming our bodies and that is a sin, do I think that God would send me to hell for smoking? No, of course not, my God is a God of love and mercy. The purpose for this blog is not to advocate smoking nor an ideology that allows Christians to disregard the desires of God simply because of his grace and we know we can,"get away with it". However, this blog is to use smoking as a jumping off point to point out the glaring hypocrisy that runs rampant in our churches and our country. Obesity.
One in every three children in America are obese, not overweight but obese. Obese by definition is having a Body Mass Index,(BMI) of over 30. In order to put this into perspective, an average 23 year old male should have around a BMI of 15 or 16, this is not an athlete but an average male, women are a bit higher than 16 but easily under 20. Obesity and weight related health problems caused over 365,000 deaths last year in America alone. This is a serious issue that is not being addressed by the modern church and therefore earned a place in this blog.
We live in a country where excess is celebrated, where extravagance is looked up to. This also translates into how we eat, because we tend to live our lives with the "what feels good to me" attitude, we view eating correct portions, and in general healthy food, as a punishment because we desire what tastes good. We set examples for our children in this as well, not only do they see us overeat but they also see us make excuses for our dangerous weight problem. Excuses for our weight problem seem as idiotic as my excuses for smoking i.e., I don't see why I should deprive myself, My entire family is big, I eat when I'm stressed, Healthy food is too expensive, etc.
As Christians we should be outraged by this epidemic...but we're not we support it. Not necessarily in word but in practice, our pulpits are filled with "larger than life" preachers who preach against harming your body with drugs and cigarettes, but then after service pile their plate higher than the tower of babel at the potluck dinner. The hypocrisy has to be evident to more people than just me. Again do I think that God would "send them to hell" over their weight?, of course not. But are they being examples of Christ in their actions? again of course not. We are called to be examples of Christ not just in what we say but how we live our lives, and that includes how we eat. I realize by the way that this silly little blog isn't going to change our country or our modern church, but maybe it will change one person. I'm also not cold hearted, I realize that it is a very difficult habit to break but it could be something that could save your life.
God loves us just the way we are, that's a given. I'm not trying to say that obese people are bad people, just someone with a bad habit much like my fight with smoking. I was just hoping to be a voice of reason from the Christian perspective, its damaging to your body and it's a silly thing to die over...or to lose a foot over.

If you're reading this please pray for my grandfather, he has, over his life developed horrendous eating habits and now it seems that he will be losing one of his feet due to his struggle with diabetes.

Written By: Joshua Parker