v
Christian dieting programs-like Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down Diet-
help believers pray off the pounds. But what deeper messages
are they sending about faith and fitness?
ommomam by LAUREN F.WINNER
ULIE JONES says Gwen Shamblin
saved her life. Jones, a fortysome-
thing homemaker and mother of
two who was overweight since her
teens, had tried "every diet under
the sun-Jenny Craig, Weight
Watchers, the grapefruit diet. If
you've heard of it, I've tried it." But
Jones could not manage to keep off
the weight. Even when she "suc-
cessfully reduced," the pounds slowly crept back. Every
month, Jones combed the health and dieting sections of her
local Borders bookstore, looking for a new dieting scheme
that would make the difference.
"Then I found Gwen," Jones says, describing her intro-
duction to Shamblin in terms some reserve for Jesus. And,
in a sense, Shamblin's book was her salvation. "I opened
The Weigh Down Diet and I knew then and there that it was
going to cha my life forever. Realy, it saved me." At a
size 14, Jones was in litte danger of deati due to medical
obesity, but she was contemplating suicide. "I was in
despair. 1 felt ugly and fat, and my husband had lost all
t interest in me. He made it quite clear that he did not want
to touch me until I got the weight off, I thouht I may as
well just end it, you know. Ufe that fat just didn't seem
worth living."
What was the message that distinguished The Weigh
Down Diet from the other dieting guides? "Shamblin," says
Jones, "tells overweight women what we want to hear: yOU
don't have to starve yourself to lose. Overeating is a prob-
lem of the soul. Put your spiitual hife in order and you will
lose weight, without cutting out the foods you love from
your daily diet."
People should not be obsessed with food, Shamblin
argues, and counting calories is every bit as obsessive as
compulsive overeating. The real problem is spiritual: get
right with God, stop trying to fill your God-shaped hole
with food, and your figure will improve.
So Shamblin, 45, does not prescribe a specific menu; she
does not encourage readers to cut out "empty calories"
from their diets; she does not chastise those who keep
Oreos in the cupboard and M&ms in the desk drawer; she
does not suggest snacking on dried apricots or substituting
sorbet for ice cream.
Instead, she focuses on helping disciples discem when
they are physiologicall hungry- "[F]ind [the] rumbling of
acid underneath the ribs.... If you are not sure that this
feelng is hunger, just wait a little longer." Once you know
you are truly hungry, rather than just cravig food to fill an
emotional or spiritual need, you can eat whatever foods
you want to-simply stop when you are full.
Shamblin, whose luminous smile, big blonde hair, and
petite figure bring to mnind a Southem Barbie dol, is just
one of many people who have made a profession out of
providing dieting and fitness resources to weight-conscious
Christians. Trimn and toned, Shamblin may not look like she
has ever struggled with overeating, but it has been an issue
for her. "I was a thin eater growing up," she confesses in
The Weigh Down Diet. But in college, overwhelmed by the
availability and variety of food at the campus "megacafete-
na" and late-night delis, Shamblin gained the "freshman
15." She took the pounds off easily in 1982 simply by mim-
icking the eating habits of a skinny friend, who ate only
when she was hungry and rarely consumed all the food on
her plate. She says she's never been more than 20 pounds
over her precollege weight, but her obsession with food left
her feeling enslaved.
in time Shamblin combined the eating habits of her thin
friend with a renewed focus on God: when she felt like eat-
ing but knew she wasn't hungry, she took it as a call to read
Sept e mber 4, 2000 1 CHRISTIANITY TODAY 51
her Bible or pray. This formula became the foundation of
the Weigh Down program. After several years of running a
Memphis nutritional counseling center for a primarily secu-
lar clientele, in 1992 she launched the Weigh Down
Workshop, which tailored her weight-loss program for
church-sponsored classes.
Today Shamblin's business, in the words of her book-
jacket copy, has risen from a garage startup to a multimil-
lion-dollar, Nashville-based corporation. There are now
30,000 Weigh Down Workshop locations in the United
States, Canada, and overseas. The Weigh Down Diet (Dou-
bleday), Shamblin's first book, rocketed up the bestseller list
soon after its release in 1997 and has sold more than a mil-
lion copies. Her latest books, Rise Above and its companion
devotional Out of Egypt (Nelson), focus even more deeply
on the spiritual dimension of weight loss. Shamblin's suc-
cess has put Christian dieting books in the spotlight lately,
but the genre goes back nearly half a century.
THE WEIGHT OF A MOVEMENT
The modem Christian dieting industry probably began in
1957, when Presbyterian minister Charlie Shedd published
Pray Your Weight Away. The book, which would never fly in
today's Christian self-help market, used the guilt-trip style
of a folksy preacher to persuade readers that God never
intended for "one hundred pounds of excess avoirdupois"
to be hanging around their belts.
'We fatties are the only people on earth who can weigh
our sins," Shedd wrote. Along with a host of hokey affirma-
tions ("Today I eat with Him"), He offered an exercise regi-
men that, among other things, instructed readers to per-
form karate kicks while reciting Proverbs 3. The book was
a bestseller.
Today's Christian dieting and fitness movement focuses
less on sin and more on the individual's addiction and recov-
ery. With Shamblin as its most popular guru, the industry
has exploded. According to nutritionist David Meinz, author
of Eating by the Good Book, the dieting industry in America is
worth $30-50 billion. "A conservative estimate is that 5 per-
cent [$1.5 billion] of that is the Christian dieting industry,"
Meinz says. "Many Christians are also buying Lean Cuisine.
The 5 percent estimate does not include that."
Meinz offers another way to parse it: "Thirty-nine per-
cent of the American population considers itself bom again.
So [up to] 39 percent of that dieting industry is Christian
dollars. That's a huge amount of money."
Christian dieting programs fall into two camps. First are
the programs like Shamblin's Weigh Down Workshop,
which try to avoid the strict rules and regulations of many
diets, focusing on the "spiritual" side of eating to the exclu-
sion of calorie-counting.
Most other Christian dieting programs are more regi-
mented. They advocate food exchanges, measuring four
ounces of this and two ounces of that. The national mnim-
istry 3D-Diet, Discipline, and Discipleship-embodies this
approach. Considered the mother of Christian dieting pro-
grams, 3D was founded in 1973 by Carol Showalter, a New
England Presbyterian pastor's wife who struggled with her
weight. "Weight Watchers met in the church," she recalls,
"and I had a hard time not noticing it as I was off to Bible
studies." As Showalter considered enrolling "for the third
or fourth time . .. God spoke to me in a most extraordinary
way: through a hand-painted sign on a Sunday-school wall.
One of Weigh Dowi founder Gwen Shamblin's
favorite verses is Matthew 6:25:
"Do not worry about what you eat or drinki"
The message was this: GOD HAS THE ANSWER.
God's answer, she determiined, was for her not to return
to Weight Watchers. Instead, she organized 3D, which
teaches that Christians, meeting in small groups, can lose
weight if they lead disciplined lives: disciplined eating but
also disciplined prayer.
A similar program is First Place. Founded in 1981 at
Houston's First Baptist Church, First Place preaches "struc-
ture," according to Carole Lewis. Lewis, now the national
director of the group, was an early devotee. Thirty-nine
years old when the First Place meetings started in Dallas,
Lewis thought, Do I want to befat and 40?
"I had already joined an aerobics class. I had 20 pounds I
needed to lose. I had tried Weight Watchers, hypnosis, and
I always gained it back." With First Place, Lewis was able to
lose weight and keep it off. "'We support a recognized food
plan-using food exchanges and a food guide by the USDA,"
she explains.
Weigh Down, and other programs like it, is nothing like
First Place and 3D. As Showalter puts it, "Gwen Shamblin is
saying something dramatically different from 3D. Eat your
chocolate, eat your ice cream. The people in her testimoni-
als may be losing weight, but is it healthy? Is it proper? Is it
disciplined? I don't think so."
Weigh Down Workshop critics like Showalter ask
potential Christian dieters to irnagine what a life patterned
on Shamblin's loose philosophy would look like. Where is
the discipline that the Christian walk requires? Lewis
agrees: "The biggest difference between Weigh Down and
First Place is that Gwen says eat whatever you want.
AXVe recognize] that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit."
Jan Christiansen is another devoted "Weigh Downer."
Christiansen made her way to a 3D group about three years
ago after struggling with her weight for years. She liked the
discipline the program provided, but she couldn't stick with
it. "It seemed just like another diet. If I have to think about
it at all, all I think about is food." Then she stumbled across
Shamblin's book in the library.
"Weigh Down worked for me," Christiansen says.
'With Weigh Down I don't have to think about food until
my tummy growls. Weigh Down doesn't feel like a diet
because diets draw your attention onto food-Weigh
Down draws your attention onto God."
Indeed, there is much to applaud in Shamblin's
approach. In contrast to programs such as First Place that
require you to develop a cycle of focusing on what you put
in your mouth, Shamblin's message de-emphasizes the cen-
trality of food. As a result, many people have been able to
break the cycle of food obsession and lose weight. But even
some of Weigh Down's biggest fans also have concerns
about the program.
WEIGH DOWN CONTROVERSY
Christiansen was so devoted to Weigh Down that she
wrote a book about it: More of Him, Less of Me: My Personal
Thoughts, Inspirations, and Meditations on the Weigh Down
Diet, which came out last year. "Writing this book has
made me see another side of Weigh Down," she says. And
it wasn't positive.
Though she contacted Weigh Down several times when
she was first starting to write, she heard no response until
she signed her contract with Starburst Publishers. Then
Weigh Down officials paid attention, making it clear they
did not want Christiansen to publish the book. "At first
they tried to warn me off my publisher, saying it was
known for plagiarism," she says. "Then they got really con-
cemed with [the size of WElGH DOWN on] the cover."
After More of Him, Less of Me was out, Christiansen
planned to attend a small Weigh Down conference in
Pennsylvania. When she registered, she did not mention
her own book, but a few days later a local organizer con-
tacted Christiansen and asked her to bring copies of lkIore of
Him, Less ofMe to the conference.
"I was surprised. I couldn't imagine, given their earlier
treatment, that the national people would support this." So
Christiansen asked the local organizer to check with the
national office, which promptly contacted Christiansen and
told her not to bring the book to the conference. "I don't
want to think anything bad about Gwen," says Christian-
sen, reflecting on the workshop's marked hostility and non-
cooperation. "But I have to wonder why she is really in
this-to help people or to make money?"
"Weigh Down routinely discourages those who seek to
profit from its and/or Gwen's narne," Weigh Down
Workshop spokeswoman Jeannie Propst told CHRISTIANrrY
Sept cm be r 4, 2 000o CH RI ST IAN IT Y TOD AY 53
 TODAY when asked about Christiansen's book. Propst
added that Shamblin's publisher at the time, Doubleday,
"was actually the more incensed party."
Weigh Down has stirred controversy on the Christian
college scene as well.
On some campuses, counselors who work with stu-
dents worry that Weigh Down and other dieting pro-
grams could contribute to eating disorders. Students at
"To have a lot of young, thin [college]
women going into a program to lose weight
is contrary to what we really need.FP
Don1 Ferrell, director of Wheaton College Counseling
Wheaton College urged the administration to sponsor a
Weigh Down group last year, but the college, concerned
that the workshop might somehow create a climate for
anorexia on campus, refused.
"For young women who tend to be perfectionistic and
concerned about having the perfect body," says Don
Ferrell, the director of the Wheaton College Counseling
Center, "being fat is one of the most terrible things in the
whole world. To have a lot of young, thin, perfectionist
women going into a program to lose weight is contrary
to what they really need. Women can make use of Weigh
Down in a very unhealthy way, like an alcoholic who
reads that drinking a glass of wine every day will be good
for him and uses that information to keep drinking."
Ferrell is careful to point out that programs like Weigh
Down have a place, but that place is not on the college
campus. Kelly Williamsen, a former Wheaton counselor
now in private practice, agrees. There are many positive
elements to programs like Weigh Down, she says: They
teach people that some longings can only be filled by
God; they confront "the erroneous idea that there are
'good' foods and 'bad' foods."
But, says Williamsen, most Wheaton students "who
struggle with food issues need also to be learning how to
develop intimate relationships with others and to recog-
nize that God has created us to need and long for closeness
in community, not just with him." Most college students
do not need to lose weight, she adds; they need to learn
"to get more comfortable with the reality that their bodies
will continue to change during the early adult years."
Equally worrisome is Weigh Down's lack of responsible
nutritional information. Nutritionist David Meinz, who
enthusiastically endorses the spiritual component of Sham-
bhn's plan, worries about its nutritional value.
"Weigh Down has tapped into the issue that people
overeat for spiritual or emotional reasons, but you should
54 CH RI ST IAN IT Y TOD AY I S e p t em b e r 4, 2 00 0
not turn to The Weigh Down Diet for nutritional informa-
tion," says Meinz, although he appreciates that Shamblin
is a registered dietitian with a master's degree in nutri-
tion. "Shamblin needs to rethink her perspective on exer-
cise," which has little place in her message.
Mary Louise Bringle, professor of religion at St.
Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, North
Carolina, and author of The God of Thinness, concurs:
Center.
"Anyone who says that you don't ever need to exercise
except getting down on your knees-that is not a mes-
sage about fitness."
As for Shamblin, she has misgivings of her own about
those who would question the Weigh Down approach.
"People don't know what sin is," she told CT. "Sin is
these people who keep telling people that God requires
you to exercise, that brownies are evil, that sour cream is
evil.... Is exercise the measure of letting your heart
desire less food?"
DANGEROUS DIET?
Noted Christian nutritionist Pam Smith has offered per-
haps the most balanced assessment of Weigh Down's
benefits and costs. "People have really grown so much
stronger spiritually in Weigh Down, with the power of
the small group and the power of the knowledge that
God is God and food is food, but the program is scary
from a medical perspective," Smith says. "People come
away from it with no understanding of what they need
for health. Who wouldn't want to hear that you can eat
biscuits and gravy and it doesn't matter because some-
how it's going to work? But there is no self-control;
rather, people are saddled with the anarchy of whatever,
whenever, however."
Smith's latest book, The Diet Trap (LifeLine Press), seeks
to tum readers away from "fad diets" toward more natural
weight-loss options. She is especially worried about people
who go through the Weigh Down program and then begin
gaining their weight back: "People schooled in the notion
that 'if you're really connecting with God, then you'll be
thin' will say they're letting God down when they gain."
Smith adds that the Weigh Down formula promotes
shortsighted teachings about nutrition and ignores docu-
mented scientific principles. "People can come away from
Weigh Down with a distrust of everything research has
shown to be true, thinking it doesn't apply to us as
Christians," she says. "Through Weigh Down, people trade
an obsessive focus on food for an all-out focus on God, and
there's freedom there, but that's where it ends." .
What are the nutritional teachings of which Smith is so
critical? "Almost everything your body needs your body
produces: lecithin, cholesterol, brain cells, protein. The
main thing your body needs is just gasoline to run it,"
Shamblin writes in The Weigh Down Diet. "So God in his
genius put all these nutrients in almost all foods--protein,
carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, water, and minerals. They
vary in percentage. Your liver can take those, move the
configurations of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen
around, and can turn a carbohydrate into a protein and so
forth." She adds that she gets the exact nutrients her body
needs: "All I do is listen to my senses."
"To the layman's ear this sounds great," says Smith. "But
you can't trust that your body will tell you what it needs. It
doesn't have a mechanism, deep in your soul, that says,
'My muscles are breaking down, I need protein."'
Shamblin suggests that her critics' self-interest may be
clouding their judgment. "Nutritionists would love for us
to keep the industry going by telling us how complicated
things are," she says.
CRAID-SCALE REVIVAL
It is easy to see why Shamblin's program has been so popu-
lar. Overweight people are often desperate for a solution,
"\People can come away from Weigh Down
with a distrust of everything research has
shbwn to be true, thinking it doesn't apply
to Christians. Pam Smith, nutrltionist.
and an easy solution is usually preferable to a hard one.
What's more, in teaching people to let God-not food-
meet their deepest needs, Shamblin is doing the church a
great service. While it seems unlikely that historians a cen-
tury hence will be intoning about any Weigh Down
Revival, it is clear that Shamblin's program has helped
many Christians move into deeper relationships with God.
Karen Mitchell, an Arkansas mother of three, says read-
ing Shamblin's books helped her not only lose weight but
"reconnect with a God I realized I hadn't really spoken to in
several years. And I'm not alone. I know Gwen is helping
people all over the country reconnect with their Lord."
In Mitchell's neighborhood alone, three women, all of
whom credit Shamblin with their own spiritual reawaken-
ing, have formed a Bible study and prayer group. "We
don't get together and just pray about weight," Mitchell
says. "This has rejuvenated our entire spiritual life."
But according to some observers, Christians should be
cautious about embracing Shamblin's brand of theology.
Kelly Williamsen applauds the workshop's "strong affirma-
tion that God, as Creator, acted with incredible wisdom in
the formation of our bodies." But she worries that
Shamblin's axiom, "we can love either food or God," fails
to recognize that people can love "several people and/or
things at one time. Is it true that all of the longings and
empty spaces we find within ourselves are only a quest for
more of God? Maybe we also eat when we are longing for
companionship, community, family."
Shamblin's enthusiastic following suggests that she goes
way beyond the status of simply a dieting figurehead; for
droves of Weigh Downers, she is a major spiritual leader.
To have become such an influential voice on spiritual
matters, Shamblin has very little theological heft behind her
teachings-and she doesn't see the need for oversight from
outside pastors or theologians. Her approach to Scripture
relies heavily on freestyle prooftexting. In her books and
videos, she has adopted the Exodus story as an elaborate
metaphor for America's bondage to dieting. ("The Israelites
stayed in Egypt for 430 years," she writes in Rise Above,
"and then they cried out for a Savior. America has been in a
mess for decades, and we have cried out to God again and
again to remove this fat and save us from this burden.")
Concerned lately with all the "false information" circu-
lating about food, weight, and nutrition, Shamblin refers to
God's warning in Deuteronomy 13 that "false prophets"
will rise among his people to test them. "When church
leaders confuse the sheep, the sheep don't know where to
go," she says. "But God has always allowed Pharisees."
On the same theme, she likes to quote Jude 4: that cer-
tain "godless men" will secretly slip in among you and
change the grace of God into license to sin. But one of her
favorite Scripture verses is Matthew 6:25: "Do not worry
about .. . what you will eat or drink" In that verse, says
Shamblin, Jesus isn't merely teaching about anxiety and
trust in God; he also means that folks should not worry
about getting enough fiber.
Shamblin, who does not identify herself with any one
Christian tradition, told CT she has been associated with
both denominational and nondenominational churches.
Thousands of churches use her program, but amid her
Septemnber 4, 2000 j CHRISTIA NITY TODAY 55
 national fame, she has become increasingly critical of
American churches. She suggests they have drifted too far
from the scriptural model. "Early Christians died to their
will and it was radical," she says. "They wanted people to
know that God is your only Lord. Today people are look-
ing for a message that tickles their own ears."
Perhaps because of such concerns, Shamblin and her
husband, David, joined another another couple 18 months
ago in planting a new church in the Nashville area.
Remnant Fellowship meets in a renovated warehouse and
currently has about 80 members.
SAVING BODIES AND SOULS
Shamblin is not the only Christian dieting personality to
claim that the primary benefit of her program is spiritual
and revivalistic: most Christian dieting programs say that
their real goal is not pounds but God. As Lewis says of First
Place, "The whole purpose is to draw us closer to Christ."
"The ultimate goal is always evangelistic," says Christian
dieter and nurse Judy Halliday, coauthor of Thin Again
(Baker) and founder of the ministry Thin Within.
"Otherwise this work would be very unsatisfactory to me."
Halliday recently was able to lead her client Stephanie

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Sferra to faith in Christ. Sferra, a California wife and moth-
er, began working with Halliday after yo-yoing with Jenny
Craig and other diets.
Sferra's experience with religion had always been "about
ceremony, doing it because you had to, walking through
the motions," but Halliday seemed to present something
more than empty ritual. The two talked about a perfect
love that was not performance-based. Soon Halliday invit-
ed Sferra to church and later gave her a Bible. "Judy asked
me if I was ready to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and
welcome God into my heart. I said I'd never said that out
loud, but this time I wvas ready. Now I'm walking through
my life buttressed by the Spirit. And to think it all started
because I thought I was 20 pounds overweight!"
Sferra is not alone. Christian dieting programs have
helped many non-Christians come to faith. Secular folks
who want to slim down see a coworker or neighbor who
"If I'm 100 pounds overweight and trying
to tell people about God's power in their life,
they will wonder why thre's no power to help
me n this area Carole Lewis, director of First Place
took off-and kept off-40 pounds, and ask, "'Howdid you
do it?" That the answer is "religious" doesn't trouble many
nonbelievers: they figure if it will help them lose weight
they might as well give it a shot-and they often leave the
program converted to Christ, if not always slimmer.
Carole Lewis of First Place underscores her group's evan-
gelistic successes: the program is "a hook to introduce peo-
pie to Christ. Many people come who've never darkened
the door of a church." Shamblin says Jews and Mormons
have come into the evangelical Protestant fold through the
Weigh Down Workshop. "Losing weight is great, but evan-
gelism is my whole point," says Jan Christiansen. "Above all
I want to tell people God can help you."
IS FAT SIN?
If professional Christian dieters emphasize their evangelistic
successes, they also talk about conversion to thinness.
indeed, Christian weight-management books are nothing so
much as modem conversion narratives. The author recounts
her own struggles with weight, describes the wrong tums she
took in searching for an answer, highlights the datable
moment where she realized that food had taken over her life,
and then shares the story of her victorious walk to thinness.
Princeton University's Marie Griffith is the author of an
acclaimed study of Women's Aglow Fellowship and a forth-
coming study of Christians, dieting, and food in American
history. She observes that in the routinized formula of
Christians describing past sins, authors of Christian dieting
books tell their readers they can sympathize with weight
struggles by recounting their own battles of the bulge.
But have Christian dieters simply bought into a worldly
standard? After all, the underlying assumption that pro-
grams like Weigh Down share with the more disciplined
programs like 3D is the notion that God wants people to be
thin. Although evangelicals are typically outspoken in their
analysis of worldliness, weight is one area where we seem
to have embraced a worldly aesthetic uncritically.
As a writer in Daughters of Sarah put it, "The message,
whether blatant or subtle, is that fat-is-sin-and-the-right-
eous-are-thin-amen."
Evangelism is one of the most popular justifications for
Christians jumping on the weight-loss bandwagon. First
Place's Carole Lewis teaches that a slender appearance is
crucial to being an effective witness, "Although God looks
on the heart, man looks on the outward appearance," she
says. 1 think we have a responsibility in our world to share
Christ. If I'm 100 pounds overweight and trying to tell
them about God's power in their life, they will look at me
and wonder why there's no power to help me in this area."
After publishing her 1979 book Free to Be Thin, Neva Coyle
received scads of letters like this: "'What shall I do? At a size
16 I look awful! How can I ever tell anyone about Christ
until I take this disgusting body back down to a size lo?"
Uniting Christ and weight-loss is no innocent, self-evi-
dent act but one laden with theological implications. Mary
Louise Bringle has struggled with her own weight and
body image for years. Critical of the ways in which
Christians have embraced the cult of thinness, she suggests
that hidden assumptions about women may be buried in
Christians' adoption of an aesthetic that privileges thinness.
"We've got to think about what this says about women,
and what women are valued for."
Though men do participate in dieting programs, from
Weigh Down to Weight Watchers, Bringle observes that
the vast majority of dieters are women. "Men get stroked
by their wives whether they gain weight or not," she says.
In contrast, countless Christian women are motivated to
diet because they fear their husbands are repulsed by fleshy
thighs and protruding tummies.
Since the days of the early church, Christianity, has had a
lot to say about food from the days of the early church (see
Sep ter.ber 4, 2000 1 CH RSTIANITY TODAY 57
 "Rx for Gluttony," p. 62). As sins go, gluttony is right up
there with sloth, avarice, and lust. But, as Griffith notes,
"the Christian tradition [also] has resources for critiquing"
the diet craze. And there are signs that some Christian
dieters are beginning to offer that critique.
When pressed, professional Christian dieters admit
that, in the words of Carole Lewis, it doesn't "matter to
God whether we're thin .. . it matters to us." Showalter
echoes that sentiment: "I can't believe that God is look-
ing at my scale."
FEEDING THE SHEEP
At least two women who formerly had success as leaders in
the Christian dieting world have recently shifted the focus
in their ministries. Their stories now serve as cautionary
tales for others.
Neva Coyle regained over 100 pounds after writing the
"I cantt beli that God is lo
Cve
at my scale. P Carol Showalter, founder of 3D
bestselling Free to Be Thin and founding Overeaters
Victorious. She now had an added motivation to lose
weight: not only would it please God and her husband, but
her career depended on it as well-an obese woman would
not have much success hawking a dieting program. But
Coyle was also fighting "a severe health crisis": her doctors
told her she would have to reverse the stomach-stapling
procedure she had undergone years before. "I was faced
with the realization," says Coyle, "that it was my weight or
my life." After some hesitation, she chose life and had the
intestinal bypass reversed.
Fifteen years later, Coyle has moved away from her ear-
lier obsession with slendemess, and her book Loved on a
Grander Scale (Servant) reminds readers that God loves
them no matter what their size. She urges them to ask
Jesus: 'Forgive me for putting my body size before you.
For spending so much time on how I look, how much I
weigh, and caring more about pleasing others than I cared
about pleasing you."
Probably the most straightforward critique of the indus-
try is found in a short book published in 1993 by Thomas
Nelson-the same publisher now selling Weigh Down to
the Christian market. In One Size Fits All and Other Fables,
Liz Curtis Higgs recounts battling her waistline for years.
When she became a Christian in 1982, she joined Weight
Watchers-"only this time, I told myself I would give God
the glory for any changes that took place."
When she quickly lost 50 pounds, her friends at church
urged her to start a weight-loss group. She founded Will
Power, which stood for "My Will Surrendered to God's
Power." The group, Higgs recalls, brought her and many
58 CH RI ST IAN IT Y TODAY I Sept em be r 4, 2 00 0
other women closer to God. But Will Power "and most
Christian diet groups of recent years . .. promoted the lie
that thin equals righteousness ... heaped additional guilt
upon women who felt plenty guilty already.... [and] bap-
tized all these efforts as 'dieting' unto-the-Lord.' It simply
was not biblicall"
Now Higgs has a different take: "Sinful to be fat? I don't
think so." And she asks "all my sisters in Christ and espe-
cially those whom I unintentionally misinformed during
my Will Power days: please forgive me and accept God's
complete and unconditional love for you."
There are hopeful signs that Christians will find a wise
balance between physical fitness and spiritual growth-
and not accept cultural notions of size 2 supermodels as an
attainable reality. However, the success and very existence
of a Christian dieting industry suggest that believers will
continue to walk a fine ine on the issue.
f3ing
Phyllis Tickle, contributing editor to Publishers Weekly
and a contributor to The Bread of Life: A Cookbook for Body
and Soul, has watched the booming Christian dieting indus-
try both as a journalist tracking publishing trends and as a
devotional writer who believes Christians need to see
themselves as whole beings: body, spirit, and mind.
Tickle says evangelicals have mostly focused on the
mind and spirit. She is encouraged, however, by the dieting
industry's sincere, if not always perfect, attempts to help
believers look at their physical bodies through a Christian
perspective.
Tickle recognizes Gwen Shamblin as an influential voice
in this effort. "Shamblin is showing us that you diet as a
Christian, you choose your food as a Christian, you exer-
cise as a Christian-and that's a fairly new phenomenon,'
Tickle says. "We are beginning to say the world of the
body can indeed be approached by a soul who is devout
and in service to his or her God and sees the world of the
body that way."
Achieving the proper balance in our image-obsessed cul-
ture, however, is another matter.
Jane, a striking twentysomething graduate student with
smooth mocha skin and shapely legs, unwittingly offered
what may stand as the best caution for the Christian dieting
industry and its disciples. Dieting constantly, subsisting on
yogurt, anxious to slim her already fit figure down even
further, Jane went to church and heard a sermon on disci-
pleship. "Listening to Jesus tell Peter to feed his sheep, I
thought, How well am I going to feed any sheep TI don't feed
myself?" she recalls. "He said feed his sheep, after all. He
didn't say diet them." (3
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TITLE: The weigh & the truth

SOURCE: Christianity Today 44 no10 S 4 2000
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