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 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 20th 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?
