Obesity, Overeating, and Overspending

For the third time in recent weeks, I am beginning this post by referring to an Oscar winner. Early this month, June and I watched The Whale. Brendan Fraser won the Academy Award for the best male actor of the year for his portrayal of Charlie, the obese central character in that engaging film. 

The Whale deals with several issues, but morbidly obese Charlie was the focus of the film, which was made in consultation with the Obesity Action Coalition (OAC). The mission of the OAC is “to elevate and empower those affected by obesity through education, advocacy and support.”

The OAC website states that their organization, formed in 2005, wants to help create a society where all individuals “are treated with respect and without discrimination or bias regardless of their size or weight.”

That is a good and important mission statement, and I wholeheartedly affirm it. That doesn’t mean, however, that obesity is not a serious problem for most obese people themselves and for society as a whole. According to a 2019 report, the annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion.

Another organization, the Obesity Society, was formed in 1982, and its webpage states,

Obesity is a highly prevalent chronic disease characterized by excessive fat accumulation or distribution that presents a risk to health and requires lifelong care.

People such as Charlie, and those who are far less obese or just markedly overweight, need understanding and support. No one deserves “fat shaming” or belittling because of their weight.

Not all obesity is caused by overeating, and not all overeating results in obesity. Still, most obese people do eat too much and too much of the wrong foods, and most people who eat too much and too much of the wrong foods are overweight, if not obese.

Regardless of the cause, all people with health problems need medical (including, sometimes, psychological) help with those problems. That is true for all those who have health issues because of “addiction” to food or whatever might cause them to be overweight.

Such problems need to be addressed, for they impact both the quality and length of life for such individuals. Certainly, not all people who maintain a healthy eating and drinking lifestyle live to the age of 90 or more, but very few people who do not practice such a lifestyle live to an advanced age.

How do/should we eat when so many don’t have enough to eat? Now I am addressing all of us, not just those who are overweight or may be obese.

This is a matter I have been concerned about for decades. As I mentioned in my 9/20/22 blog post about Ron Sider (1939~2022), his most widely-read book was Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.  

That book was hailed by Christianity Today as one of the one hundred most influential books in religion in the 20^th century. Originally published in 1977, a revised, expanded, and updated edition was issued in 2015.

The first of the four parts of that powerful book is titled “Poor Lazarus and Rich Christians.” The reference, of course, is to the story Jesus told about a poor man named Lazarus, and an unnamed “rich man who clothed himself in purple and fine linen, and who feasted luxuriously every day” (Luke 16:19).

There is no indication that the rich man was obese or even overweight, but Jesus told this story in criticism of the Pharisees, “who were money-lovers” (v. 14)—and also likely lovers of expensive fine food.

Sider’s first chapter is “A Billion Hungry Neighbors.” Maybe there are not as many now as in 2017, still, I can’t help but wonder how many of us, regardless of how much we weigh, spend too much for fine food to eat at home and in pricey restaurants and give too little to help our “neighbors.”

Those who are obese or overweight because of metabolism issues or food addiction may not be able to choose to do/be different from what they are at present.

Most of us can, though, choose to eat less expensive food and spend less on restaurant meals. But will we do that in order to share more generously with our hungry neighbors?