Disordered Abundance:

American Protestantism & Food

By Holly Reed

Eat, drink, and be merry (Ecclesiastes)

Betcha can’t eat just one!

“Whenever you see a fat Christian, you’re looking at one who is not walking with the Lord.” (Bringle, 119)

“Almost all of us who can afford to be eating well are dieting – and hungry – almost all of the time.” (Bordo, 103)

Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. (Luke)

WHAT WOULD JESUS EAT?

Food is not a neutral subject. It is also a subject that is inured by ambivalence and paradox. Whether you discuss hunger or overeating, everyone has an opinion about it. Many people also have a physically personal stake in the topic of food, because some people can’t live with it, and some can’t live without it.

Mainline American Protestantism, like all Christian communities, is intimately connected to food. Our basic identity is bound up in the sharing of a meal. Even if the Eucharist is taken and received only in a symbolic form, its power is vast. It is through food and drink that we draw close to God. In this sense, food is sacred, and it is to be encountered with respect and dignity. However, food can also be profane, as when it is abused or becomes a symbol of power and control. 

Because we have been blessed with existence in an affluent nation, we have had the rare opportunity in history to have too much food, and this has provoked a whole range of issues and questions about our attitudes and behaviors with food. As in other areas of social discourse, and at many other points in our national history, mainline denominations have dictated the ideologies and values by which we conduct and judge our lives. The definition of an appropriate relationship to food has not escaped the influence of church doctrine and attitudes, but it has undergone significant shifts over time as our sense of abundance waxes or wanes. Colonialism, western frontier expansion, an abundant creation, the Industrial Revolution, urbanization, medical and health issues, immigration, wars, globalization, advertising, mass media, consumerism, fashion, theology…these and many other factors mingle and move the prevailing attitudes about the best ways for a Christian to relate to food.

My interest here is in the developing problem of a disordered abundance. Despite our abundance, we still have people who go to bed hungry. Because of our abundance, we have people who eat too much, starve themselves to death, or otherwise abuse food. How does the church respond to disordered abundance? How is the church connected to the problem of disordered food relationships, and does the church collude with cultural attitudes effecting our patterns of eating and dieting?

To answer these, and other, questions, I would like to place the topic in a particular context: a small, rural parish in New England. By looking at one particular congregation’s response and relationship to disordered abundance, I believe we can catch a glimpse of the prevailing attitudes at a great number of Protestant churches. After the context is established, I will define the terms of the discussion as well as set the parameters within which I’ll work. Because food is such an immense topic and has so many implications, only a few issues will be reviewed. Once the topics are defined, I will provide a brief summary of the changes in how we relate to food, weight and body size, followed by a consideration of the particular ways that American Protestantism has been engaged in this history. Finally, I will propose a new – or at least amended – way to formulate a theology and relationship to food from within the church community.

First Church of Riverside

First Church of Riverside (not its real name) is a small church, with 130 members in a town of 8,500. Less than 10% of the membership qualifies as "newcomers" to the community, if you define a newcomer as someone who has lived in town less than fifteen years. Despite the small size, First Church is one of the largest congregations of its denomination in the entire county  (population in 2000: 71,500). Overall, the county is economically depressed, with the median household income being below the national average of $42,228. Riverside has an even lower median income of $33,750 (the state median household income is $52,253). Traditionally a farming community, Riverside became "industrialized" 100 years ago as factories sprang up along the river. Following World War II, most factories closed as manufacturing jobs moved south. Farming has also diminished, and the gap is only slowly being filled by educated "outsiders" who have jobs in other towns or operate computer-based or consulting businesses from their homes. Riverside is a white church, with essentially no minority representation. The town itself is predominately white, with 217 Hispanics and 71 African Americans. Despite the generally depressed economic situation, the village in which the church exists (called Riverside Center), which is made up of 1,945 people within the larger town of 8,000 people, itself is growing and prospering. However, the growth is seen as an invasion by long-time residents, who resent the turning of farmland into track housing. Riverside is becoming a bedroom community to several larger communities to the south, where white-collar jobs are relatively plentiful.

On the first Sunday in October, First Church celebrated. This was the Lord's Day, and the week designated for the monthly service of Holy Communion. Though the service remains the same each month, a different Deacon prepares the communion elements. This month the Deacon brought in sour dough bread, previously chopped into cubes, and a bottle of home-made red wine to be served along side the standard grape juice on the tray filled with small plastic cups.

Following the worship service there is traditionally a "coffee hour," where hot and cold beverages and an assortment of snacks are available while people greet one another and relax. Different people sign up to "do" coffee hour each week, so what is presented can vary from instant coffee and packaged cookies to a variety of drinks, cakes, cookies, cheese and crackers, fruit, and vegetables and dip.

But today would be different. Today, this first Sunday in October, was the day designated for the local hunger walk. Money was being raised to support both local and national efforts to help hungry folk, and to work towards an end to hunger as a result of economic need. Church members had gathered "sponsors" who would give them a designated amount of money after they completed the five mile walk. To send the walkers off in style and with tangible support, a potluck luncheon was served in place of coffee hour. Several pasta salads, jello salads, and bowls of chips started the meal, followed by an array of pasta dishes and casseroles. Baked goods were in abundance for dessert. People lingered longer than usual, and almost no food was left to clean up and take home as leftovers.  

Attendance at worship on the first Sunday in October was above average. Just about everyone who came to the worship service stayed for this celebratory send-off meal. A few people actually came to the meal who had not attended the service, primarily husbands and post-Sunday school children. There were six people from the congregation making this walk for hunger. All together $1,350 was raised to fight hunger. This is not unusual at First Church: they give generously to hunger causes and help regularly at local food banks and at local soup kitchens. Though not a prosperous congregation, they are well aware that many people have less then they do. It is also not unusual for First Church to celebrate an event with food and drink, because where there is food, people linger and socialize, and connections are created and affirmed.

Definitions & Statistics

First Church, like every other church in the United States, lives in a paradoxical situation. The church is situated in the midst of an abundant creation, yet disorder abounds. Helping the hungry is an ever present and important cause to address. Though it is easiest to help the hungry “over there” – those who are not our neighbors and colleagues and are therefore less threatening – congregations can help the hungry in a number of different ways: monetary donations, food donations, helping at a soup kitchen, or even by walking, riding, rocking, running….to raise funds.

Of course, not everyone can walk for hunger. Some people are too overweight to run, or too obese to even walk very far. Others are unable to participate because they are too weak from self-starvation. The absence of these people is rarely noted at such an event, for many people choose to “sponsor” a walker than walk themselves. Yet if we note their absence and pursue their situations, we come to a deep, silent abyss at the heart of the church. Our churches, champions of the hungry as well as the faithful followers of the biblical injunction to “eat, drink and be merry” (Ecclesiastes 8:15), are silent in the presence of disordered eating. It is rarely spoken of, and even less often acted upon. Disordered abundance, it seems, is an individual problem that originates with an individuals choice, their human will power, and is not an issue requiring congregational attention.

But statistics indicate otherwise. The combined number of people in the US who are overweight, or who have an eating disorder, is estimated to be between 135 – 140 million adults, age twenty and above! (NIH, 6; NEDA, 1) Consider that number: the US alone has over 135 million people dealing with disorders of abundance. Juxtaposed to that statistic is the 815 million people world wide who are undernourished. In 1999, the US had 11.4 million of these people, people who are considered “food insecure with hunger.” (Amber Waves, 1) In other words, there are thirteen times more overweight or eating-disordered people than there hungry people in the US!

Before we go further, let me define the terms of this discussion. Food Insecurity is the current euphemism for hunger in US government publications. Food security, or the state of not being concerned about hunger, is defined as “access at all times to enough food for active, healthy living.” Food insecurity is when “the household did not always have access to enough food for active, healthy living for all household members because they lacked money or other resources for food.” There are 10.7 households in the US who describe themselves as food insecure, but this is still not quite the same as hungry in the USDA. Food insecurity with hunger is “involuntary hunger that results from not being able to afford enough food.” As noted above, only 3.3% – 3.8% percent of all households (a household is defined as three people) are food insecure with hunger. (Amber Waves, 1-2)

Eating disorders, on the other hand, always involve the presence of food:

Eating disorders involve abnormal eating or dieting behaviors. These can include starving or eating huge amounts of food (binge eating). People with eating disorders think too much about food, eating, body shape or weight. They may be normal weight, overweight, or underweight. (American Psychological Assoc.)

Commonly, eating disorders include anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. Obesity is only occasionally included in this category because it is not clear if obesity is a moral or a medical condition.

Whatever we name the category, overweight and obesity are major health issues in the US. In a 1999-2000 study it was learned that 64.5% of US adults over age twenty are overweight. Over 30% of the adult population is obese. Overweight is defined as “an excess of body weight compared to set standards. The excess weight my come from muscle, bone, fat, and/or body water.” Obesity is the condition of having an abnormally high proportion of body fat. (National Institutes of Health,2) Obesity is measured at different levels of severity, ranging from moderately to morbidly obese, which is “either 100 pounds overweight or 100% above ideal weight.” (Thompson, 442)

The standards of ideal weight change periodically. For many years the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company ideal weight charts were used as the standard scale. Introduced in 1942, it was modified in 1983 and is still popular.

Weight Chart for Women

Weight in pounds, based on ages 25-59 with the lowest mortality rate
(indoor clothing weighing 3 pounds and shoes with 1" heels)
Click here to calculate frame size

Weight Chart for Men

Weight in pounds, based on ages 25-59 with the lowest mortality rate
(indoor clothing weighing 5 pounds and shoes with 1" heels)
Click here to calculate frame size

*Ideal Weights according to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company tables (1983) (from http://www.healthchecksystems.com/heightweightchart.htm)

An increasingly popular assessment tool, however, is the Body Mass Index (BMI), which is a calculation derived from ones height and weight. It does not distinguish between male and female. Most researchers and health care providers now use this information as the weight standard. In terms of the BMI, a healthy weight is larger than 18.5 and smaller than 25. An overweight person falls between BMI>25 and <29.9. An obese person is BMI>30. (NIH, 6)