Can Faith Make You Fit?
Swearing off exercise after playing college football, pastor Steve Reynolds watched his weight quickly creep up to 340 pounds, where it stayed for years. Then, he says, a four-step program struck him like an epiphany: "Dedication, Inspiration, Eat and Exercise, and Team." The author of Bod4God: The Four Keys to Weight Loss -- sometimes called the "Anti-Fat Pastor -- used this revelation to lose over 100 pounds. Reynolds has certainly struck a chord, as recent appearances on "The View" and "The Today Show" reveal. Even though his book was published in 2009, the media has recently turned the conversation to Reynolds, who believes that regular diets don't work because every person has "different appetites." God's plan, he says, is tailor-made for each of us.
He has since created aphorisms like "Your Body Was Made By God and For God" and "Don't Try to Lose Weight Alone, Join a Team of Losers" as part of a program (the topic of his best-selling book) to encourage people to people follow the path to what he believes is divinely inspired healthfulness.
The preaching of weight loss with a spiritual basis is nothing new, of course. Numerous Christian-based fitness and diet movements have sprouted up over the last few decades. Christian yoga studios have spread across the country, with Bible scripture replacing the yoga sutras; Torah Yoga and Om Shalom Yoga feed the Jewish soul while stretching the body. Karate For Christ is one of many Christ-focused martial arts. And of course Tim Tebow made headlines last season by passing touchdowns for God.
So it's natural to ask the question: Can faith make you slimmer, fitter, and healthier, or perform better?
Concordia College associate professor Michelle Lelwica, author of The Religion of Thinness, feels that faith can play both helpful and harmful roles. While her work has focused on women, she feels the biblical creation story has thrown a millennial curveball in women's eating habits: Eve sinned because she ate that apple (or pomegranate), unconsciously setting off a chain reaction of diet-focused neuroses. "Some women's faith involves spirit-over-body beliefs that tend to reinforce negative attitudes toward physicality, as if the body is a 'lower' part of the self that needs to be monitored, tamed and ultimately controlled," she says. The main danger, she believes, is when someone becomes too rigid in their approach to health; flexibility, she says, is key.
Faith has positive qualities, too, she says. "Faith can play a vital role in cultivating a more positive and healthy relationship with their bodies. This tends to be the case when faith functions as part of a...way of living that is oriented by overall health, healing and a sense of purpose. Women for whom faith plays a more positive role...tend to approach faith with an emphasis on compassion rather than judgment, well-being as opposed to correct belief."
Daniel Fusco, pastor at Washington State's Crossroads Community Church and a friend of mine, agrees. He finds that faith plays a vital role in health seekers. "The New Testament teaches that the body is the 'temple of the Holy Spirit,'" he says. "Therefore, the human body is the vehicle through which the spirit of God can move out to the world through people. Physical health is essential to transformative living."
Do you think faith is an essential part of getting and staying fit?
—Derek Beres, Women’s Health Reporter
Photo: Courtesy of Amazon.com
