Is this considered gluttony?

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well it really wasn’t until today I really though about why gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins until today. Someone I knew passed away :crying: he was my old pastor’s son and wasnt at a healthy body weight and it caused him to stop breathing. Now my empathy is all out to the family because theyve lost 2 members but well i cant help but feel he killed himself. Its like he just stopped caring about himself and kept eating until it took his life. Is this considered gluttony? If so I can see why it is a deadly sin. Also could this put him in purgatory or worse?
 
confusedgirl said:
well it really wasn’t until today I really though about why gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins until today. Someone I knew passed away :crying: he was my old pastor’s son and wasnt at a healthy body weight and it caused him to stop breathing. Now my empathy is all out to the family because theyve lost 2 members but well i cant help but feel he killed himself. Its like he just stopped caring about himself and kept eating until it took his life. Is this considered gluttony? If so I can see why it is a deadly sin. Also could this put him in purgatory or worse?
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It’s hard to say, I know it’s definitely wrong, but for some it may be an addiction, meaning like a bad mental state or frame of mind. 🤷 I don’t know how God will judge it.
 
It may be gluttony, it may be mental illness. Pray for the repose of his soul as well as for the family.
 
Gluttony would be something that is wilful and in full knowledge. It sounds like this poor man was simply trapped in his behaviour.

Remember that he would have had cravings for food in quantities you or I could not conceive of, simply because of the size of his body and the requirements for it just to keep it going, despite the fact that his weight was killing him. For some people such things may go unrecognised (even if it might be obvious to others) until it is too late.

I would never condemn him for his situation or the way in which he died. I would only feel sorry for the condition of his life and the fact that he would have been very unlikely to have been happy with it.

May God grant him peace.
 
Not in the specific case: where there will be information I am not privy to:
but in general, many people in the western world are guilty of habitual gluttony whether or not they are obese.

I am guilty of that myself.

The 7 deadly sins are not individual actions.
They are mind-sets that lead to many many small sins which drive a much deeper wedge between you and your creator than one massive mortal sin that is quickly regretted and repented of.
The 7 deadly sins are by nature, extremely difficult to repent of. They lead you to destroy your relationsip with God, and to accept his forgivness. they lead you to destroy his gifts to you and to harm the other people around you.
Gluttony is one of these. it is the habit or normalizing of consuming more than your body needs to sustain itself and remain healthy.
Sloth is another. while more complicated than lazyness, it includes a tendancy to avoid doing enough physical activity to maintain your body.

While some people who are obese have underlying health problems that contribute, it is much more common for it to be the other way round.
But by the time you become super morbidly obese it is then extremely difficult to repent of the gluttonous behaviour, and almost impossible to become physically active, as your skeleton and muscles are no longer strong enough to move you around like they were supposed to. - while this trap is not inescapable, it is extremely difficult to climb out of.

So that last meal was probably not gluttony. But it was probably a long history of gluttony that got many people into that state of morbid obesity.

(definition: Obesity: BMI over 35.
Morbid Obesity: Your weight is causing or very likely to directly cause or worsen health problems or complications in other areas. e.g. diabetes, mobility problems, Arthritis gynecological problems etc.
Super-Morbid Obesity: The health problems being caused by extreme obesity are serious and may be life threatening in the near to mid term future.)

Gluttony is a sin of our entire society in it’s culture, and is therefore very widespread in the population.
I myself am overweight. I eat to much and don’t get enough exercise. I have not doubt that this is the effects of Gluttony and Sloth in my life. I need to repent of these to have the best ability to serve God and my Family (spouse and children) and my Neighbour.
 
A doctor whose advice I greatly respect explained that most people who struggle with overweight (and the dreaded obesity) have a food addiction. He pointed out that the difficulty with food addiction is that you cannot stop eating altogether, so you have to have some of what you are addicted to every day. This makes breaking out of the addiction so much more difficult.
 
Very sad to hear about this. Yes, this most likely is a case of gluttony. It is rampant in our present age. I wish more ministers, both Catholic and Protestant would preach about this. The obesity epidemic is so bad and has actually become a threat to national security.
I see it as a spiritual problem primarily. You see, several years ago I lost 90 pounds through proper diet and exercise. It was hard, but worth it. I knew, as most overweight and obese people do, that I was eating too much and that food was a false god. This may not go over well with those who seek to exonerate these people, but yes, this type of behavior can be very sinful- the temptation to overeat can be overcome with God’s grace and hard work.
 
DexUK said:
Gluttony would be something that is wilful and in full knowledge. It sounds like this poor man was simply trapped in his behaviour.
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I would re-state for clarity.
The “7 deadly sins” are a tradition about behaviours and mind-sets that are ingrained or habitual. They are not specific sins of action. They are states of mind that lead us to comit regular sins that then have a very serious effect in the long term.
It is better to think of them as “Capital Vices”
A vice is the opposite of a Virtue. It is a *tendency *to commit a sin (as a virtue is the tendency to do good)

e.g.: Pride: this is not an action or a thought it is a state of mind.
wrath, greed, sloth, lust, envy, and gluttony. ditto.

These are vices rather than sins. The guilt accrues when the vice is acted upon.

Here’s an example. The Catechism teaches that smoking is not a specific sin, however intemperence is a sin. Tobacco is highly addictive, and leads the user into intemperance.
Many smokers spend inordinate amounts of their own / their families money on cigarettes due to this addiction. That is therefore sinful. it wastes the Lords Bounty, and wastes money that could be better spent elsehere or given to charity. it also offends the commandment “You Shall Not Kill” few people could claim invinceable ignorance on that final point today regarding smoking of cigarettes.

An occasional Cigar on the other hand while risky from a health point of view would not necesarily be intemperate, and may not be directly sinfull provided it is not unafordable.
 
The reason why gluttony is a mortal sin is because it falls onto idolatry. Just as someone mentioned above people do become food addicts and when they start replace their inner void with food instead of God and become obsesed with food and all your desires are directed to food, then it is a mortal sin. It is practically the same situation as with people who get obsessed over money and power, with the difference in the case of gluttony is food. I also met a family who lost their mother as the result of her eating habits. She was about 400 pounds and could not move. She would eat for breakfast four loads of bread and six dozens of eggs. Her family was struggling economically because they had to spent thousands of dollars in food for the mother and it was a really sad case. The family decided to get a gastric bypass for her to try to find a solution but she died out of complication right before the surgery. I think these cases are really sad especially for the relatives. Like all addictions, gluttony certainly not only can kill you but destroy your family.
 
Not to mention, for some, its not really over eeating or food addiction, its that they can’t afford or don’t know how to make the right food choices. In my country at least, there are huge rates of obesity in those who are on social support. They obviously can’t afford lean cuts of meat or good fruit and vege, and a litre of milk is much mroe expensive than a litre of coke. So, if a person on social support from the government has five kids to feed, then yeah, they are going to buy white bread, coke cola, and fatty mince and sausages - which of course leads kids to not getting the right ideas about food and health.

We can never be sure of the state of someone’s soul or mind, maybe he was just lazy who liked to eat, maybe he was mentally unwell and unable to stop, maybe he couldn’t affford or didn’t know how to make the right choices? Its quite insideous, a person on the dole, buying terrible food because that’s all they can afford, suddenly life looks pretty bleak, no job, getting fatter, to embarssed to go outside because of being fat, just leads into getting fatter.

I’m overweight thanks to my day’s as a student, and now I work 40 hours a week in a job where I do shift work. Its really easy to just grab a pie and bag of chips instead of getting off your backside to go cook a lean piece of chicken and vege, especially after a long, tiring day.

Basically, weight issues have too many variables to really point to one thing as the cause. When it comes to food, I think gluttony might not claim too many souls, however, people can still be gluttonous when it comes to sex and other desires. Leave his fate to the mercy of God, who knows the whole story, more than even that unfortunate fellow.
 
For me, I got terrible sick at 21 years old. I became allergic to so many food so quickly that I ended up starving because my esophagus was so narrow and the liquids I was trying to drink down would just sit in my throat and not go down for hours. I have always been underweight. I was so weak for so long I could hardly keep my eyes open nor could I sit up without sliding down a chair or the couch or the car seat and end up on the floor. However, I was lucid. At some point, I realized that sinning, even if you don’t realize it is a sin still leads to death, and all of my actions big or small had gotten me to that point in my life. I wasn’t religious, at that moment in my life, but I realized that ignorance of sin is no exception. I still feel I deal with gluttony. The way I look at it, if it is not nutritious then it does not serve a point in my diet. The whole biological point in eating it to nourish oneself in order to strengthen the body and refuel it. When you eat foods that take away nutrition from the body you are defeating the whole purpose of eating. Eating is not solely for pleasure, (just as sex isn’t solely for pleasure) but pleasure is a part of it. So eating junk food is missing the mark of what the purpose of eating is, which is exactly what a sin is (missing the mark) When I think of my temptation to eat foods that aren’t good for me, I think back to the passage in 1 Corinthians 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.”
 
confusedgirl said:
well it really wasn’t until today I really though about why gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins until today. Someone I knew passed away :crying: he was my old pastor’s son and wasnt at a healthy body weight and it caused him to stop breathing. Now my empathy is all out to the family because theyve lost 2 members but well i cant help but feel he killed himself. Its like he just stopped caring about himself and kept eating until it took his life. Is this considered gluttony? If so I can see why it is a deadly sin. Also could this put him in purgatory or worse?
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It’s called sleep apnea.

Manyif not most overweight people have poor metabolism, and do not intentionally set out to commit suicide by fork.

Have you ever been to Utah where people are prohibited by their religion to have coffee, alcoholic drinks and smoke.

All they have to satisfy oral cravings is food, lots of ice cream.

Do you dislike them too.

a
 
marymary1975 said:
The reason why gluttony is a mortal sin is because it falls onto idolatry. Just as someone mentioned above people do become food addicts and when they start replace their inner void with food instead of God and become obsesed with food and all your desires are directed to food, then it is a mortal sin. It is practically the same situation as with people who get obsessed over money and power, with the difference in the case of gluttony is food. I also met a family who lost their mother as the result of her eating habits. She was about 400 pounds and could not move. **She would eat for breakfast four loads of bread and six dozens of eggs. **Her family was struggling economically because they had to spent thousands of dollars in food for the mother and it was a really sad case. The family decided to get a gastric bypass for her to try to find a solution but she died out of complication right before the surgery. I think these cases are really sad especially for the relatives. Like all addictions, gluttony certainly not only can kill you but destroy your family.
Click to expand...
When I would read about or hear about people eating insane amounts of food like that, I used to wonder how their body could even digest that much food, then I saw a show on obesity where they did ultra sound and other tests of extremely overweight people and showed how when people eat that much food like that how there’s so much food in their stomach and bowels that it starts to rot before the body could even digest it!:eek::eek: That right there would cause a lot of problems on the inside. Something definitely has to be wrong with someone to eat like that.
 
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