What if being fat is not sinful? (by John Frye)

What if being fat is not sinful? asks Prof. Rebecca DeYoung. In her book, Glittering Vices: The Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, DeYoung points out that gluttony in our culture is one of the most oversimplified and misunderstood vices.  Here we must emphasize that what makes gluttony a vice is that it is a habit. We can fall into a groove of repetitive choices to eat and drink for the very pleasure of these activities. Gluttony is a pattern of eating, not an occasional overeating. Gluttony corrupts created goods (eating and drinking) and we, by seeking excessive pleasure by them, get out of control of our appetites. Gluttony, then, is not about the amount of food eaten, but about the desire to consume the food. “Their god is their stomach,”to quote Paul (Philippians 3:19). Food becomes a god, not just a good. We consume for “the pleasure fix.”

Who has not found him-/herself in front of the refrigerator lamely staring in, looking for something? We tell ourselves, “I’m not really hungry. What am I doing here? Oh, I know. I am bored, or lonely, or down, or worried.”We’re looking for a pleasure that food was never designed to give. We can become overstuffed, but be empty. The vice of gluttony has us. Who hasn’t piled high his buffet plate because who knows what will be left if we don’t get it all first?

Who among us hasn’t guzzled a Coke Zero which has exactly zero nutrients for the body, but we like the way it tastes and feels going down? “Gluttons judge the world from the perspective of satisfying their own desire for pleasure”(146). Aquinas believed that gluttons are like little intemperate children who are unabashedly ruled by their appetites.

Like many of the vices, gluttony suffers from the law of diminishing returns. The more you seek pleasure in eating and drinking, the less satisfied you become. So you eat more. DeYoung makes two observations. One, bodily cravings are made to be only temporarily satisfied. The deception of gluttony is trying to satisfy the soul through the stomach. It’ll never happen. Being satiated is not the same as being content. Two, as human beings, we are more than material beings. We can “fill up”on food and be starving spiritually. Buechner writes, “A glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition”(146).

A prim and proper lady, finely dressed, carrying an air of dignity may be a flaming glutton as she fastidiously describes to the server how her salad must be just so, and her grilled salmon just so, and please, please keep my coffee hot. The pleasure of being in control and the pleasure of “having it her way and only her way,” billboards her vice. A glutton. Maybe there are more skinny gluttons in the world than fat people. Now, of course, a guy shoveling down food like there is no tomorrow may be a glutton, too. The cookie jar thief may be in a bad groove. DeYoung admits that, in a personal experiment when she monitored her eating habits, she built her whole schedule around food (see 145).

Fasting is the remedy for gluttony. Fasting reveals what controls us is the wisdom of Richard Foster. Eating is more than a physical event. It is social. We’re meant to be at table with others. Fasting helps us appreciate and be content with simple food. Abstinence increases our ability to enjoy food. Fasting also helps us have an appetite for spiritual goods. We learn to trust God for daily food: “Give us this day our daily bread.”