Food – A Necessary Evil
Food is arguably the most important part of our daily existence. Every day, we eat, prepare, purchase, and plan for even more food. Most people find pleasure and gratification in food as it provides the nourishment to fill our bodies and our souls, and is the foundation for most of our social connections. So, how can such an important part of our very existence also be a source of our bodily and spiritual demise? Many blame societal pressure for guiding us into unattainable perfection in our relationship with food – don’t be too fat or too thin, don’t eat too much, don’t eat too little. However, there is plenty of blame to go around. Dare I say that God may be to blame?
God could have designed our bodies in any way He wanted. He could have designed us to not need food at all; we could simply go about our daily lives without any required sustenance. But, alas, He designed us humans to use the resources He put on Earth to sustain our existence. He created the plants and animals and their byproducts, such as milk, that would have the necessary nutrients in just the right balance for us to flourish. Our digestive systems were made with just the right enzymes to metabolize meats and vegetation and our teeth were designed to chew and grind those foods. But, He also gave us taste buds and pleasure sensors in the brain so that we could experience enjoyment from the food. Nice of Him, right? Not so fast. By doing so, He set us up for a constant internal battle against excess. Now the deadly sin of gluttony rears its ugly head and the effete fight of intemperance ensues.
According to Raymond Angelo Belliotti, gluttony is “an inordinate desire for food and drink, or generally, as an unhealthy concern with enlarging the self. The overindulgence of gluttony leads to waste” (Belliotti 139). He goes on to state that gluttony is also evident in anorexia (140), but I would argue that, while anorexia shares the same feature of obsessive interest in food as gluttony, the salient difference is that anorexics deny God’s foods that he created for us and gluttons abuse God’s foods. Perhaps this is splitting hairs, but they appear to be two opposite, yet related sins.
God created us such that we are constantly striving for perfection. If we do not eat the perfect amount at a meal, we feel the negative effects. If we overindulge, we may feel the uncomfortable feeling of our belly skin stretching, lethargy, and nausea. In the long term, overindulgence can result in ailments including diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and depression. Conversely, if we do not eat enough, we may feel lightheadedness, stomach pains, and weakness. In the long run and in extreme cases of undereating, diseases such as anorexia, bone loss, and infertility can occur. But, if we eat just the right amount, we feel energized, healthy, and happy. Are the negative effects of gluttony and undereating also part of God’s blueprint to remind us to eat just the perfect amount, and in doing so we honor Him?
Although we may be predisposed by God’s design for a lifetime of struggle toward bodily perfection, contemporary society has exasperated the problem. It has snubbed its nose toward those who have succumbed to a life of gluttony, blaming abundant and easy access to unhealthy fast food and junk food, selfish overeating for comfort, and lack of self-control. But is it fair for society to blame people for something that even the strongest, most disciplined people have difficulty fighting because of the way God designed our bodies? To a much lesser extent, society also shuns those who are very thin as pejorative names such as “a walking skeleton” are used to describe fashion models and actresses.
To remedy the contemptuous attitudes toward gluttonous, as well as extreme dieting behavior in our culture, altruistic efforts are made to promote body positivity. Well intentioned messages, unfortunately, often result in confused, mixed messages. Years ago, I was in a women’s organization which was working to design a program to promote positive body images for teenage girls, so we brought in a panel of experts to educate us on the issue. One panelist spoke of the dangers of overeating and obesity while another spoke of the dangers of anorexia and undereating. I was perplexed by the dichotomy of ideas, so I asked the panel how we were to guide these girls when the message I heard was that these girls must be perfect – not too fat, not too thin. I was met with scorn for daring to suggest that they were promoting perfection. My mind went back to Goldilocks, “not too fat, not too thin – just right.” Isn’t striving to be “just right” the same as striving to be perfect?
We rely on God’s creation of animals and vegetation for our daily sustenance. He wants us to be grateful for our bountiful resources and to use them wisely. He designed us to be tested every day and to honor Him with every encounter with food to find that perfect balance between overindulgence and denial. Dang! There’s that pesky word, again – perfect.
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Works Cited
Belliotti, Raymond Angelo. Dante’s Deadly Sins: Moral Philosophy in Hell. Wiley-Blackwell, 2014, pp.139-140.