Thread by @drantbradley

One-third of pastors are obese/overweight. COVID exposed the real danger of obesity. I'm not sure the proper entry point: stewardship, gluttony, etc., but ignoring this topic in church life is putting entire communities at risk for all sorts of disease. baylor.edu/mediacommunica…

Insulin resistance is correlated with all sorts of cancers such as colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, endometrial cancer, breast cancer) as well as Type II diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease. This is a real blind spot. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P….

"Diets high in refined sugars, for example, are harmful to the brain...worsening your body’s regulation of insulin, they also promote inflammation...and impaired brain function — and even a worsening of symptoms of mood disorders, such as depression." health.harvard.edu/blog/nutrition…

Maybe your infertility struggles are diet related? ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

The food regularly served at church events, foods given to children and youth, eating related to men's events, etc. contribute to poor health outcomes. What are religious communities modeling by encouraging a food consumption culture that's correlated with chronic disease?

We know so much more about the correlations between food consumption and disease than we did even 10 years ago. While need to continue we need to pray for people's healing from disease, at some point, we need to encourage preventative responsibility. This isn't "fat shaming."

While we need to continue to pray that people are healed from various diseases, we also need to work hard to adopt the habits and practices that we know thwart may of the things on our prayer request list. We need to treat sugar addiction and food addiction like alcoholism.

Doing X day fasts and juicing diets, and then going right back to poor eating, is not the model. There are real reasons some people struggle with their eating (loneliness, stress, depression and so on), that also need to be addressed. We need to be sensitive to those realities.

I'm not advocating for a particular diet. I am, however, advocating that how (and what) food is consumed be as central to our discussions about how we consume alcohol, our material consumption, and so on. How do we best free people from food addiction, over-eating, etc.?