Is It A Sin To Be Fat

I'm not a glutton.

Have you ever sat down to a large family meal? Was the food you consumed of higher quality than another family that you knew of? Have you eaten any of the processed, mass-produced foods readily available in the Western World?

All while this is happening?



Welcome to gluttony.

-CryptoLutheran

Consider your theology. Sometimes theology isn't just bad, sometimes bad theology is downright toxic.

It's not gluttony, I can't travel to them and help them. Overeating is a Sin, do you believe so?

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote greed is "a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things."

So should we take it that being fat is also a sign of disrespect to God?

He gave us our bodies and do we not have a duty to treat them as a Temple and to look after them? Therefore everyday that someone lives as overweight it is an insult to God.

Now please note, this does not apply to people who have a medical condition that keeps them from losing weight - e.g. a thyroid problem. But cases such as these are a small minority - say less than 1%

Isn't it true to say that the other 99% of fat people are sinning everyday that they continue to overeat and not exercise? As in all such cases, we should love the sinner, but condemn the sin.

I would like to say, in amendment to my posts, that I apologize by their hostile tone. I'm prone to being cranky without my coffee in the morning, and as someone who has struggled with obesity for the entirety of my life, whose entire family likewise struggles; and as such it's primarily genetic this is one of the few areas where I'm rather sensitive. Being large has not been much of a picnic in most social settings. When you go into a restaurant and feel the judgment coming from the looks of other people--even when you only ordered a salad or something small--it's easy to become defensive.

I consume far less quantities of food than virtually anyone else I know, I am far more active in my lifestyle than a lot of people I know. It's my burden and I accept it.

More than this, my grandmother on my mother's side who I've always been very close with used to confide in me that she was very scared that she might not be allowed into heaven because she was a heavy set lady. Why? Because she grew up in a church tradition that taught that being fat was sinful, and that living in such sin meant your salvation was ever in jeopardy. This was a sincere and real fear that had, and her sisters (who were not heavy set) found a lot of joy in trying to torture her with this idea.

Consider your theology. Sometimes theology isn't just bad, sometimes bad theology is downright toxic.

-CryptoLutheran

It's not gluttony, I can't travel to them and help them. Overeating is a Sin, do you believe so?

What follows is not judgement, but something to consider (it's something I would like to do as well and acknowledge I don't do it but feel like I ought to):

Consider all the things you could be doing.

Consider all the food you could put aside by fasting from certain types of food once or twice a week, and donating that food to soup kitchens, or to organizations that can get more food to nations with starving children.

Not being able to personally travel and help shouldn't be excuse not to help.

The fact of the matter is that each and every person in this world that has the ability to use the internet also has the ability to do more to help their neighbor.

Have a hankering for pizza? Don't. Take that money and feed someone else. Little things.

-CryptoLutheran

What follows is not judgement, but something to consider (it's something I would like to do as well and acknowledge I don't do it but feel like I ought to):

Consider all the things you could be doing.

Consider all the food you could put aside by fasting from certain types of food once or twice a week, and donating that food to soup kitchens, or to organizations that can get more food to nations with starving children.

Not being able to personally travel and help shouldn't be excuse not to help.

The fact of the matter is that each and every person in this world that has the ability to use the internet also has the ability to do more to help their neighbor.

Have a hankering for pizza? Don't. Take that money and feed someone else. Little things.

-CryptoLutheran