the obesity epidemic?
I just watched an extremely intriguing and humorous documentary called "Supersize Me". You've probably heard of it. This guy does a documentary on the fast food industry and the obesity problem in America in general and to drive home his point and add shock value to the whole thing this guy goes on a "McDonald's only" diet where he eats three meals a day from your favorite neighborhood fat store and if they ask if he wants to supersize it he must answer yes. He endures thirty days of this torturous ordeal, gains 25lbs, almost destroys his liver and shows America that we are fat and rediculous.My point however is that there is something beyond just this. Yeah we're fat and need to eat better and exercise more but this isn't our main problem. America has this issue of pride where everything we have has to be more than the next guy. "I want a bigger coke and fries than you" or "I want the biggest house, tv, and gas-guzzling SUV to drive to my gigantic high-rise office building in downtown and back to the suburbs"(I don't see sport or utility in that picture). We have an insatiable need to feel better about ourselves by the things we have and can get. Food is not just about sustaining us or even about taste but its about "more" including more food for your money (i.e. cheap fast food in mass quantities). This is a product of Satan telling us we need these things to satisfy us. All told though we will never be satisfied by food, drink, sex, cars, houses, businesses, investments, hobbies or anything else. We can only be satisfied by God who is the maker of all things including food and designed it to be used for a purpose and with thanksgiving and we have warped it to no end. This is also a product of "the fall" and the reason why God sent Jesus to save us from this sin. That is beautiful truth - we can be saved from this need to fill our lives with everything this world says will do the trick and find satisfaction in the one who made it all in the first place. Obesity is not the main epidemic (which I looked in the dictionary and epidemic can be used of things that are widespread that don't necessarily have to be contagious disease); it is a symptom of the main epidemic which is the sin in this world due to us trying to find satisfaction in things that are not God.
posted by jc @ 8/20/2005 10:35:00 AM
2 Comments:
I agree 100%, but isn't it interesting how satan allows different people to try to satisfy the void in their life in different ways? For example, one man may become a glutton, eat at McDonlds every day, and weigh 400 pounds. Another man will be obsessed with his own body, work out every day, and become the pinnacle of health.
One man may try to satisfy his void with an 8 mpg SUV. Another man will drive a prius, recycle every day, and draw pride from the fact that he's "saving the earth".
One man's vain attemps are reckless now, but both men's attempts will kill him in the end.
Stupid satan... he's a jerk.
Peace,
-Mike
Nice call Mike. My tendency towards cynicism regarding all of these things could even be a source of pride (i.e. I'm above all these rediculous things like food and money and cars and houses) because truth be told as you said we all have something that satan tries to use to get us (mine, of course, is my obsession with My Little Pony). And the only way we can move past them and not fall into a meaningless existence of deriving satisfaction from temporal things is the grace we have been given through Christ. "For it is by grace you have saved through faith and this not of yourselves. it is a gift of God and not by works so that no one can boast" (Eph 2:8-9)
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