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Food Fights

Anorexia. Bulimia. Even the words sound harsh — a good fit for the two disorders. As college women, I would guess that most of us either know someone who's had an eating disorder, or we've struggled with one ourselves. After all, surveys repeatedly show that many women struggle with these concerns in some form or another during their college years — and even more at least have a friend who has.¹

I'm a part of both groups. Though now in college, eating disorders have affected me — and therefore my family — for the last half of my life. When I was 11, I was severely anorexic. Ever since then I've continued to struggle with food issues — sometimes more, sometimes less. During this period I've learned several things about who I am, who God is, and what life is about. I've grown in my relationship with God; I've finally come to terms with the fact that I cannot live a life of disordered eating and live out God's plan — I have to choose. For a long time, I denied the necessity of this decision.

When is It a Sin?

For years I tried to justify why my eating disorders weren't sinful. How can super healthy eating be a sin? I can still seek God and do His will, I'd think. There are plenty of people doing lots worse things — and look at all the folks who are gluttonous!, I pointed out to God. Besides, I plan to get past the eating disorders soon; I just can't do it right now. After years of arguing with myself and God about all the reasons my disordered eating habits weren't sinful, I finally gave up and let myself hear the truth: They are.

I don't know at exactly what point along the path to an eating disorder food and weight issues become sin. What I do know is that if they have control over us, the line has been crossed.

If food and weight change the way we live our lives, if they are our main focus, then they have become our gods — as much as we may deny it. It's easy to declare that Christ is the number one priority in our lives, but our actions often say otherwise. If Christ were the central focus, we wouldn't disobey His commands to honor our bodies; we wouldn't worry about food or be afraid of getting fat.

Unhealthy food behaviors, fixation on slenderness, obsessive exercise — all are ways that we give worship to the false god of Eating Disorders (ED). In my worse periods, I would skip social functions and withdraw from time with friends, because I knew ED would make things awkward. What if food were involved? What if I got hungry? I couldn't eat something with too many calories.

There were even periods when I wanted to completely isolate myself, when I liked spending time with ED more than with other people — more than with God. My schedule — my entire life — revolved around what I ate, rather than around trying to be more like Christ.

In Romans 12:1, Paul makes it clear that God gave us our bodies for the very purpose of honoring Him: "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice — the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?" (New Living Translation).

Ouch. If I don't put Christ at the center of my life, if I isolate — ignore people, relationships, and the love for others that Christ has called us to — then I'm missing the entire point of life! I am rejecting God's call to obedience, servanthood and Christ-likeness.

Eating disorders disobey God's command to strive for holiness. We are called to trust God 100 percent; it's entirely irrational to trust God with our souls — our eternal destiny — and not trust Him with our perishable earthly bodies.

Besides, God owns our bodies in the first place. We are merely stewards whom He's put in charge of caring for them. One day we'll face God, and He will ask us how we "invested" what He gave us, how we used our bodies to serve Him and grow the Kingdom. Did we use them to love others, to be a witness for Christ? Or did we use our bodies for our own pleasures and purposes — and not only that, but destroy them in the process?

It's All About Me

Eating disorders, like all compulsions, are incredibly self-centered. It's all about me and my routine. I tried to justify my eating disorders and the things they entailed by trying to convince myself that the only one being hurt was me — after all, it was my body. I could do what I wanted with it.

Well, first of all, as Christians we're not our own. As mentioned in Romans 12:1, and again in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, we belong to God, body, mind and soul. That means that by dishonoring my body I'm dishonoring what is rightfully God's. But besides that, people with eating disorders hurt those who care about them — their friends and family. Eating disorders create tension in relationships; the secrecy of the behaviors often isolates the person from others. Time together is disrupted by her food and/or exercise.

People with eating disorders may even cause damage that they're never aware of.

Sometimes I look back on the years when eating disorders ran my life, and I wonder who I may have hurt or negatively influenced with my behavior — who I didn't help in one way or another because my life was all about my food, my exercise, my weight, rather than heeding Christ's greatest commands: loving God and loving others.

Who's in Control Here?

My eating disorders were a way for me to take control of my life. I was frustrated with myself and with others. Instead of giving that hurt to God and waiting for His healing, I decided that I would take care of it; I would lose weight and make my life wonderful. As dumb as it sounds when actually put into words, that's what I believed.

The Bible tells us to have a certain amount of self-control over ourselves, but there is a limit. God calls us give our concerns over to Him, not to worry or obsess about things. We often believe the lie that God is not trustworthy, or that He doesn't truly care — it's one of the ways Satan gets us to turn to other things. In reality, if we take the leap and trust God, handing our fears to Him and accepting His peace and truth in return, we'll be amazed at how things change and wonder why we didn't hand things over long ago.

It's tempting to continue to keep the control and just try a new approach, but keeping the reins in our hands and just going another direction doesn't qualify as giving things to God. If we try to recover through our own willpower, through some plan we've constructed, we're still clinging to control; it just has a new look.

In trusting God we have to be mature enough to accept that we may not initially be pleased with what happens. After all, your will isn't exactly aligned with God's when you're up to your neck in something like an eating disorder. We have to trust that God will work things out in time — even though every step is terrifying.

Fear is a huge factor in an eating disorder. It makes me think of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he had to take the "step of faith." The clues all indicated that a bridge would appear once he took the step. However, from his point of view — standing safely on the ledge — it looked as if he'd be stepping off into a bottomless chasm. He was unsure at first; he hesitated. Then, he squeezed his eyes shut and stepped off the ledge. Once Jones was on the bridge he could see it, but he never would have gotten there if he hadn't taken that huge risk. That's what recovery can feel like.

Giving it to God

For years people would tell me to give my food concerns to God. Yeah, well how am I supposed to do that when I'm the one down here with the hungry stomach? When I'm the one who has to choose what, when and how much I eat?

Then I realized something.

Sure, I'm the one who has to do the eating, but I have to trust God with the outcome, with what will happen to me because of that eating. After all, that's what I'm really afraid of.

God designed our bodies to reach a weight "set-point" — the weight our bodies most naturally maintain when food and exercise aren't issues. My job is to believe that God will fulfill His plans for me even if I'm at my healthy weight rather than super-thin; that He will give me friends, a husband, a mission, and that with His help I can learn to live with a healthier body — even if it doesn't look the way I think it should.

Seeking Help

I also finally realized that trusting God meant seeking help. Trusting Him means handing over some of the control to the people He places in our lives. God created us to need one another, and self-help recovery from an eating disorder rarely works. Even with the best professional help and a lot of support, recovery is still a struggle.

I began praying that God would guide me to a good dietician and a good therapist, and then I began calling around. (There are therapists and dieticians that specialize in helping people with eating disorders.) My therapist supported my faith, morals and commitment to trusting Christ in recovery — plus, she pushed me to do things I really didn't want to. In other words, she was a good fit for me, and definitely part of God's plan for my recovery.

A dietician is also really important. In my experience, trusting a dietician is monumentally difficult. Initially, I didn't even really think I needed one. I know enough about nutrition to write my own book thanks to the eating disorder. However, meeting with a dietician wasn't just about learning what to eat. For me, it was more about the reassurance that I'd be OK (something I told her I needed a lot of). Plus, it was good for me to try and stop thinking so much about food. I had, and did, pray about it a lot, though, which meant I had to trust God to work through my dietician. That way, in trusting her, I was really yielding control of what I ate to Him.

Being committed to recovery is hard. It takes constant mental work. Never before did I know how exhausting just thinking can be. Really, though, it's a spiritual battle — it's having to fight the world's lies, non-stop. It's fighting the drive to "work the system" by choosing the lowest calorie foods, or not being honest with the dietician or therapist. It's fighting the temptations to "sorta" recover — to get a little better, but not jump in all the way. "Sorta" recovering is taking ED off of the pedestal but keeping it around all the same.

Making the Choice

Recovery is difficult, but it is possible — especially when you turn to Christ. I was listening to a lecture by Del Tackett, creator of Focus on the Family's The Truth Project, the other day. He was talking about the obstacle that persistent sins pose to our connecting with God and living out His will for our lives. Simply and sternly he concluded with, "The time has come to be done with it."

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What do you think are some of the lies people believe when struggling with an eating disorder?

Join the discussion!

Christ said pretty much the same thing when, in Matthew 5:29-30, He tells us to uncompromisingly cut out anything in our lives that causes us to sin. It's our choice if and when to listen to Him and finally be done with the eating disorder behaviors we persist in. Turning away from sin and toward Christ starts with a conscious choice.

Resources

For more information and help, visit the following Web sites:

• TroubledWith.com ("Eating Disorders" section).
• Remuda Ranch.* One of the oldest and most widely recognized Christian recovery centers in the U.S.
• National Association of Anorexia and Related Eating Disorders (ANAD).* Offers hotline counseling, a national network of free support groups, referrals to health care professionals, and education and prevention programs to promote self-acceptance and healthy lifestyles.
• Olive Branch Outreach.* A Christian recovery site.