Obesity and faith

[Ridgerunner]

I hear stories about kids decades back playing outside from dawn until dusk. That just doesn’t happen anymore. Nowadays, if you let your kids play outside, you are expected to be out supervising. If you let them out of your sight for just a second, you are labeled as a bad parent.

I was a “country kid”, raised 'decades back", and it’s true. We were expected to do work, some of it pretty calorie-intensive, but played most of the time, and in all kinds of weather. Nothing quite like hauling a sled up hills when it’s 20 degrees outside to burn up an enormous calorie intake.

We didn’t pay a lot of attention to what we ate, I’ll admit. But neither did we have access to most of what people today think of as “junk food”. That was the sort of thing you got on Christmas or the Fourth of July. We ate what the family ate, and that was all there was to it. Well, I’ll admit that at a point my brother and I figured out how to make fruit pies and made them every weekend while my parents were resting, and ate the pies out in the woods. Pretty sugar-laden, too, they were.

But (and I blush to admit it) I was never so surprised when I went to college to learn that there were people who drank cokes or whatever, EVERY SINGLE DAY! I always thought cokes were something you got on July Fourth; kind of a celebration thing.

“Town kids” also spent most of their time outside, though they didn’t have to feed cattle or anything like that. But neither could they, as a practical matter, walk for mile after mile in the woods, hunting, the way we could. Town kids could have bought cokes or candy every day if they had the money to do it, but they didn’t have that kind of money.

Fortunately, my parents never knew the kinds of trees we climbed. If the Family Services people were around then and knew it, they would have taken us out of the home in a heartbeat. Well, the DFS wouldn’t have been too keen on our hunting water moccasins with shotguns at age 9 or 10 either. But it must be admitted that climbing 70-100 feet into the top of an ancient sycamore burned a lot of calories! Well, and the view was superb as well, though it didn’t require many calories to enjoy that.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Let me add this. Lots of people are afraid, now, to let their kids go roaming the way we did or even the way “town kids” did back in the day. Fear of child molesters. I don’t know whether child molestation is more common now or whether we just hear of it more. But I think that puts a big damper on lots of childhood exercise.

I’ll add this. I don’t jog or anything, but it’s just a fact that when i work outside, especially in the cold, I thin down some. I’m not sure it takes a whole lot.

 

[Viki63]

For the past two weeks, we’ve been back on the regimen again. Interesting that I call it a “regimen,” which calls up visions of “military drills.” Yes, to us, that’s what this is. We can no longer jump into a car for a drive to a skating competition, stop at a Road Ranger, buy a huge bag of Cheetos, and munch all the way to the rink. Instead, I have to make sure that we have carrot sticks, apple wedges, grapes, etc. in plastic bags in a cooler, and my husband has to pop and bag popcorn, with very little salt. And you know, it’s tasty, but it’s not Cheetos…

Not to pick on Cat, but we have the mindset that unless we have constant access to food, we’ll keel over.
We can eat 3 meals a day and not eat in between for 4 to 5 hours, which gives our stomachs time to rest, digest the last meal ec. We don’t need to take a cooler full of snacks to an event, we can just take a healthy salad to eat for lunch.

 

[Debora123]

The other day I went into a public elementary school to gather information for tutoring my 6 year old son (who is in a Catholic school). I was astonished at the high number of obese children. I have heard it is a growing problem, but I hadn’t seen it as a problem until I saw line ups of kids and the number that were overweight.

It doesn’t seem to be a problem at his school, and I can;t imagine that it is a faith issue. By the contrast was so extreme it surprised me.

Lately people have been really bashing overweight people. I heard that Michelle Obama said something demeaning- not sure what it was. What;s going on? And what are we called to do as Christians in an overweight society?

It’s simple. Kids who go to Private schools tend to come from families who have more money and are more stable. This makes for healthier children.

 

[Catholic_Prime_1]

It is about Faith.
To me James 2:24 says Faith and Works.
Protestants only believe in Faith, so I can see
where they can get heavy, but Catholics are supposed
to be living their Faith, so in order to impress the non-Catholics
we need to be fit to do so.

I asked a slim and fit priest one day,
why he was in such good shape
and he said, Cause he was Catholic.

 

[Cat]

I struggle with weight a lot. I always have. Right now, according to the BMI chart, I fall into the “overweight” category. And it’s true, I need to lose weight. For me, it’s not really a health issue or even an eating issue… it’s an exercise issue.

I eat the way you are supposed to… lots of veggies and whole grains, etc. And I count everything (calories, carbs, fat, protein and fiber anyway). I am doing Weight Watchers right now and I have to log and account for every bit of food I eat.

Exercise is my Achilles heel. I have to exercise at least an hour a day or I don’t lose weight. If I don’t do any exercise, even eating right I gain. For me, it’s just finding the time… which I’ve been good at for a while. I’ve slowly lost weight since last year.

But now I am sidelined with a knee injury. Everything I’ve tried hurts my knee and makes it swell up. Even just standing for an hour results in a sore, swollen knee. It’s frustrating and I am not losing weight anymore–in fact the scale says I am up two pounds since I hurt myself. I am eagerly looking forward to swimming season so I can get exercise again.

But my point is, I get frustrated when people assume it’s easy to lose weight and that overweight people are just lazy, eat nothing but junk food, or whatever. I think most overweight people have tried and tried again to lose weight. And if it was easy, we would all be thin.

I also get annoyed that people assume overweight automatically makes you unhealthy. I am in perfect health other than my weight (well, and my darn knee now). Just had my annual physical and my blood work is all great, I have a textbook perfect cholesterol, and my blood pressure and resting pulse rate are excellent. When I am out on the trails I have better endurance than a lot of thinner people I know. Sure, you can say it’s because I am working on losing weight and exercising–but so are a lot of other overweight people.

One other thing that I’ve always wondered that I never see addressed. Is the US becoming more overweight not only because of eating and exercise habits, but also because we are getting older? Boomers make up most of the population and they are getting to their retirement years. Weight gain when you are older seems to happen easier and is harder to battle.

This is a very heartfelt post, and one that I personally identify with.

I had an untreated injury for several years that made it almost impossible for me to do any weight-bearing exercise. Since I do not swim well, swimming was not an option. (The injury was a broken posterior tibialis, the big tendon that holds the arch of the foot. The “clue” that it is broken is being unable to stand on the tip-toes–without that tendon, you can’t do this.)

The reason it was untreated is that I assumed that the reason my foot hurt so much was that I was fat. It is very common for fat people to allow aches, pains, and other symptoms to go untreated because they assume that it is because they are fat. People die doing this.

Anyway, I want to make sure you realize that if you have hurt your knee, it is very likely that any weight gain you are seeing on the scale is water weight from the injury. Several years ago, I hurt my knee (I fell on it). It was quite swollen, and I spent several days sitting with the knee elevated and covered with iced towels.

You will probably not believe this, but it’s true–the weight gain from that knee injury was seventeen (17) pounds! Once the swelling went down and the knee was healed, I was actually 17 pounds lighter than when the knee was first injured!

So please don’t be too hard on yourself. Just get the knee injury treated.

As for the theory that the weight gain in this country is because of boomers, I think that what we’re seeing is not just weight gain in one age group, but across the boards. At least a third of the children in the U.S. are either overweight or obese.

While you are recovering from your injury, I recommend that you acquire the book The End of Overeating–Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David A. Kessler. This book was the turning point for me, and really helped me to understand why I am so obsessed with food and more importantly, what I can do about it. (It has to do with re-wiring the brain to respond to a different reward system.)

 

[Cat]

Not to pick on Cat, but we have the mindset that unless we have constant access to food, we’ll keel over.
We can eat 3 meals a day and not eat in between for 4 to 5 hours, which gives our stomachs time to rest, digest the last meal ec. We don’t need to take a cooler full of snacks to an event, we can just take a healthy salad to eat for lunch.

But you see, you apparently don’t have the same mindset that people like me and my husband have. We don’t eat because we are hungry. We eat for many other reasons.

In the car, we eat to stay awake on the long drive. (Not coffee drinkers).

At the competitions, we eat because we are nervous, or bored (in between events), or because our friends are all eating, or because we are celebrating a win, or consoling ourselves over a loss.

Or…we eat simply because the food is there and it tastes soooooo good!

You see, those who do not have problems with food really don’t get this at all. I’m not saying they should sit out of the discussion. What I’m saying is that they probably won’t be able to help much because they don’t get it. Thanks for trying, at least. But you’re talking a different language, one that people with food issues can’t comprehend.

 

[ephesians2]

It is about Faith.
To me James 2:24 says Faith and Works.
Protestants only believe in Faith, so I can see
where they can get heavy, but Catholics are supposed
to be living their Faith, so in order to impress the non-Catholics
we need to be fit to do so.

I asked a slim and fit priest one day,
why he was in such good shape
and he said, Cause he was Catholic.

Hmm. That is a very educated answer. Are you serious or just extremely ignorant? The Protestant friends I have are by far more fit (skinnier if you will) and health conscience than my Catholic friends and relatives. Does that mean my Catholic friends and relatives are “pretend” Catholics because they are overweight and eat junk food?

Also, Protestants believe they are required to live out their faith because they are to live as Christ lived. They just don’t believe your works get you into heaven.

 

[mellowcalico]

Thanks Cat! For the book recommendation and the encouragement. I hope my weight gain is just the fluid around my knee. It looks pretty squishy compared to my other knee. I wanted the doctor to aspirate it and maybe give me a cortozone shot so I could get back to exercising. She told me she didn’t think it was that bad and if it hurt I should just get a cane. Yeah, I am not getting a cane. She seems to think it’s “wear and tear” but I’ve clearly communicated several times that I hurt it during exercise, it made a loud pop and I was in immediate pain–I even felt like I was going to throw up it hurt so much at that point. My problem is I am not in acute pain all the time now.

I might have wear and tear on the cartilage in my knee, but I KNOW something happened when my knee popped and buckled. I just don’t understand why no doctors believe me. It reminds me of the time I walked around with pneumonia for weeks on end because they said I “just had a cold.” They FINALLY believed me when the stress of coughing cased me to crack a rib. The did a chest X-ray and voila… oh, it looks like you have pneumonia.

I’ve actually given up on professional medicine at this point–I don’t know why I bother. I hardly ever see a doctor and when I do they treat me like I am making stuff up. Cane indeed. I plan on treating myself with over the counter NSAIDs and icing me knee. I only have two weeks to wait for the pool to open… all I have to do is make it until then.

 

[Havard]

Mellowcallico,

Your determination is inspiring!

Regarding your knee… as a former football player, I’ve had some nasty knee injuries. One particular injury which was difficult to diagnose at first was a dislocated patella (kneecap). My knee got hit very hard by a 230 lb fullback moving at high speed, and my kneecap popped out of its slot. This caused the kneecap to slip around the outside of my leg, however when I hit the ground, the sharp re-extension caused the tendons to pull it back in place. No one believed me when I told them, because there was no clear evidence. They thought I had just hit my “funny bone”.

I’m not saying this necessarily is what happened to you, but it might be worth investigating. The way I was able to prove my injury was that I had repeat dislocations. An initial dislocation can stretch the tendons and erode/break off bone contours that hold joints (or kneecaps) in place, making it more likely to happen again. Not that I wish this to happen to you, I’m just giving you a heads up, if this is at all beneficial.

 

[JacarandaPurple]

I’ve actually given up on professional medicine at this point–I don’t know why I bother. I hardly ever see a doctor and when I do they treat me like I am making stuff up. Cane indeed. I plan on treating myself with over the counter NSAIDs and icing me knee. I only have two weeks to wait for the pool to open… all I have to do is make it until then.

Have you dealt with birth issues yet? Because I got my education in just how idiotic and condescending doctors can be from that.

 

[Crescentinus]

Have you dealt with birth issues yet? Because I got my education in just how idiotic and condescending doctors can be from that.

It is sad that I see condescension from doctors in some big public hospitals here in Manila.

Back to the topic of obesity, it is saddening to see that there are plenty of women who think that they are too fat (even though most of them aren’t) and then decide to have some weird diet.

 

[PatriceA]

It is about Faith.
To me James 2:24 says Faith and Works.
Protestants only believe in Faith, so I can see
where they can get heavy, but Catholics are supposed
to be living their Faith, so in order to impress the non-Catholics
we need to be fit to do so.

I asked a slim and fit priest one day,
why he was in such good shape
and he said, Cause he was Catholic.

All the “overweight” priests in my diocese are going to be absolutely shocked when I tell them their weight issues is because they just don’t have faith and aren’t Catholic.

 

[Crescentinus]

All the “overweight” priests in my diocese are going to be absolutely shocked when I tell them their weight issues is because they just don’t have faith and aren’t Catholic.

Not to mention St. Thomas Aquinas and Gilbert Keith Chesterton.

 

[PatriceA]

Not to mention St. Thomas Aquinas and Gilbert Keith Chesterton.

Or Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York.

 

[Havard]

Or Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York.

I think there are (at least) two errors people can make here. One is that faith demands a high level of fitness. The other is that faith has no bearing on fitness. What we are called to is good stewardship of our bodies and self-discipline relating to earthly desires. Having different minds and bodies, I think this is inevitably going to vary from person to person.

Truly, His Eminence is a man of great faith. Clearly he embraces self-discipline and good stewardship of his body, as evidenced by this article:

articles.nydailynews.com/2012-02-16/news/31069255_1_archbishop-timothy-dolan-cecilia-metella-diet-du

 

[PatriceA]

I think there are (at least) two errors people can make here. One is that faith demands a high level of fitness. The other is that faith has no bearing on fitness. What we are called to is good stewardship of our bodies and self-discipline relating to earthly desires. Having different minds and bodies, I think this is inevitably going to vary from person to person.

Truly, His Eminence is a man of great faith. Clearly he embraces self-discipline and good stewardship of his body, as evidenced by this article:

articles.nydailynews.com/2012-02-16/news/31069255_1_archbishop-timothy-dolan-cecilia-metella-diet-du

It does point out though that one can have great faith as a Catholic and STILL struggle with a weight issue. He’ll probably always have to be diligent with certain health issues, but I doubt he’ll ever be slim. Slim doesn’t seem to be the body shape God gave him. It does go to show that people can seem “overweight” and still be faithful, or be Catholic or even be a faithful Catholic. And it may surprise people but there are just as many healthy “overweight” people as there are unhealthy “underweight” or thin people. But having a lack of faith isn’t a factor, IMO.

 

[Havard]

It does point out though that one can have great faith as a Catholic and STILL struggle with a weight issue. He’ll probably always have to be diligent with certain health issues, but I doubt he’ll ever be slim. Slim doesn’t seem to be the body shape God gave him. It does go to show that people can seem “overweight” and still be faithful, or be Catholic or even be a faithful Catholic. And it may surprise people but there are just as many healthy “overweight” people as there are unhealthy “underweight” or thin people.

All true.

But having a lack of faith isn’t a factor, IMO.

I assume you mean for Cardinal Dolan, and not for everyone? If faith compels the faithful to make healthy decisions, then for people with a lack of faith, one of the motivations for making such decisions (good stewardship/self-discipline) is missing.

 

[PatriceA]

All true.

I assume you mean for Cardinal Dolan, and not for everyone? If faith compels the faithful to make healthy decisions, then for people with a lack of faith, one of the motivations for making such decisions (good stewardship/self-discipline) is missing.

No, I mean for everyone. You can not tell just by outward appearances, and being overweight by society’s standards certainly is an outward appearance, that that person is lacking faith and that’s why they have a weight problem. There are many, many reasons why people may be overweight, and some people that are overweight are healthy. Weight is not always an indicator of someone’s health, there are just as many unhealty “slim” people as their are healthy “overweight” people. The number on the scale is NOT an indicator of how much or how little faith one may have, again, in my opinion. Healthy decisions do not always reflect in one’s weight number.

 

[Havard]

No, I mean for everyone. You can not tell just by outward appearances, and being overweight by society’s standards certainly is an outward appearance, that that person is lacking faith and that’s why they have a weight problem. There are many, many reasons why people may be overweight, and some people that are overweight are healthy. Weight is not always an indicator of someone’s health, there are just as many unhealty “slim” people as their are healthy “overweight” people. The number on the scale is NOT an indicator of how much or how little faith one may have, again, in my opinion. Healthy decisions do not always reflect in one’s weight number.

I don’t advocate for weight as being a gauge of effort either. I just think that faith can surely promote self-discipline and good stewardship of one’s body. How that’s manifests itself in terms of effects/results is bound to range from person to person, but I think it usually does something positive for you.