|
Feb. 28, 2004, 3:11AM Bible
Belt-tightening? Churches confront nutrition
Associated Press GRAPEVINE --
At one time, Sunday morning worshippers at Fellowship Church satisfied their
spiritual hunger with God and the Bible -- and their physical appetite with
Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Then pastor Ed
Young preached a sermon series on the biblical principle of the body as the
temple of the Holy Spirit. "People
loved the Krispy Kremes, but the more we started thinking about this, we were
saying, 'We can't talk about this on the one hand and on the other hand have all
these doughnuts,'" said Young, whose 18,000-member suburban Dallas church
increasingly touts healthy eating and physical fitness. In the Bible
Belt, fried-chicken fellowships and potbellied pastors are as much a part of the
culture as NASCAR races and sentences that start with "Y'all."
Churches traditionally have not worried much about waistlines.
As Autumn
Marshall, a nutritionist at Church of Christ-affiliated Lipscomb University in
Nashville, Tenn., explained, most evangelical Christians don't drink, smoke,
curse or commit adultery. "So what
do we do?" she said. "We eat." While the
Bible frequently condemns gluttony, Marshall said, "it just appears to be a
more acceptable vice." A 1998 study
by Purdue University sociologist Kenneth Ferraro concluded that church members
were more likely to be overweight than other people. Ferraro
analyzed public records and surveys involving more than 3,600 people. Broken
down by religious groups, Southern Baptists were heaviest, while Jews, Muslims
and Buddhists were less likely to be overweight. "In many
respects, a lot of the Christian religions, especially the fundamentalists, just
have not made the connection yet that you can dig a grave with a fork,"
Ferraro said. That's readily
acknowledged in "High Calling, High Anxiety," a new book by the Rev.
O.S. Hawkins, president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Annuity Board
in Dallas. That board administers the medical and retirement plans for the
denomination's pastors. The top two
medical claims paid by the denomination's health insurance program in 2002 were
for ailments such as back problems and high blood pressure, often the results of
obesity or a sedentary lifestyle. "It seems
the secular community is sounding the alarm over the evils of obesity, but
Christian churches do not seem to have heard the message," Hawkins wrote.
He cited
denominational statistics that showed 75 percent of Baptist pastors eat fried
foods at least four nights a week and 40 percent snack two or more times a day
on cookies, chips or candy. "We're
pretty good at avoiding alcohol and tobacco, but 25 percent of us drink six or
more cups of coffee a day," Hawkins wrote. "Baptists definitely hold
the heavyweight title in ministry." The Rev. Byron
McWilliams once fit that bill. Two years ago, when he weighed 260 pounds, the
pastor of First Baptist Church in Buna said he didn't dare address the subject
of healthy eating to his South Texas congregation because he would have felt
like a hypocrite. Then, he
turned 40. About the same time, he watched a family in his congregation suffer
through the death of a middle-age father from heart disease, and he attended a
denominational meeting where Hawkins discussed the need for pastors to take
better care of themselves. "I
realized I was probably more of the problem than the solution," McWilliams
said. So, the father
of three started running and limiting himself to 2,000 calories a day. He shed
50 pounds and 6 inches from his waistline. "It was
pretty amazing as to how quickly the body, the way God has designed it, responds
to regular exercise and eating correctly," he said. It's a message
McWilliams now freely proclaims -- even from the pulpit. At Fellowship
Church, a similar emphasis on God's role in healthy living persuaded Angela
Wicker, 35, to finally improve her diet and exercise for reasons other than
vanity. "Before,
I'd exercise for a while and quit," said Wicker, 35. Along with
changing her own diet, she replaced her children's fast-food chicken nuggets and
fries with turkey sausages and steamed vegetables. Her 12-year-old son
Christopher has lost 20 pounds and kept it off, she said. To help
promote physical activity, Fellowship Church offers running and cycling clubs,
team competition in basketball, soccer, flag football, softball and sand
volleyball, and even a fitness "boot camp."
Young, the
church's pastor, said he works out in a gym and runs three or four times a week.
His wife, Lisa, joins him at the gym and leads a "walking with
weights" program for people in the congregation.
As part of a
"Body for God" sermon series that he preached, Lisa Young cooked on
stage and demonstrated how changing a few ingredients in a meal could reduce the
fat grams.
"We're
not like purists," Ed Young said. "It's not bean curd and tree bark
and carrot juice every day. But I would say about 95 percent of the meals that
we eat at home are healthy. She uses lean meats, fresh vegetables, not a lot of
butter." Still, the
Youngs' congregation -- like churches in general -- has a long way to go.
That's evident
to anyone who stops by a restaurant chain near the church after Sunday morning
worship. "You'll
see a group of people who have obviously been to church," Ed Young said.
"And you'll see them order all this fat-laden food and then they'll say,
'Let's pray together. God, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies.' "The deal
is they should have prayed before they ordered, 'God, help me order stuff that
will glorify you.' " |