Part 2: Does the Bible Support Dieting For Weight Loss?

Does Scripture support dieting for weight loss and Diet Culture at large? No. I don’t think it does. I explain why in Part 1 where I take a critical look at the Scriptures that are commonly cherry picked by Christian Diet Culture to craft their Biblical grounds for dieting. 

Here, in Part 2, I start with the big picture. Our design. First, I’ll look at how God designed our bodies to actually work. Then at God’s design for the purpose of His Church.

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God is pretty smart and He was very intentional when He designed Human Beings. So I don’t think He’s at all surprised that 97% of intentional weight loss attempts fail. 

Humans haven’t found a single way to keep the weight off. We may be able to lose the weight, but research shows that we gain the weight back within 1-5 years and 2/3rds of us gain back even more than we lost.

Intentional weight loss is the number one predictor of weight gain. Which means that dieting is nearly synonymous with weight cycling (aka yo-yo dieting) where we lose and gain weight over and over.

God isn’t surprised by this or disappointed in our “failure”. And that weight regain is not an accident. It’s not because 97% of us are too weak. It’s because God designed our bodies to gain the weight back. 

The weight regain is our body refilling its dangerously depleted energy stores. It’s how our body saves our lives. 

That strain you feel isn’t because you’re weak. It’s because you’re convinced something should be easy, when in reality, it’s impossible. We’re not designed to diet for weight loss.

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God knows every hair on our head (Luke 12:7, Matt 10:30). So I feel confident saying that He also knows how much energy, and how many calories, our body needs at any given moment.  

He knows how underfed and over-exercised we are. He knows the impact of us living in an energy-deficit (expending more calories than we consume). That’s why He built the Deprivation Cycle into us. Whether it’s famine, poverty or a diet. Our body is designed to keep us fed and alive in the face of deprivation.

The Deprivation Cycle is our natural physiological response to restriction and deprivation. It’s like a swinging pendulum. The farther, and longer, we hang out in the food restriction zone, the more quickly and intensely we swing back into the put-that-in-my-mouth-now zone. The binge inevitably follows the restriction. At first it might take a few days to swing into the binge zone, but after years of restriction, nightly binges are commonplace.

The restrict-binge Deprivation Cycle is just one of the many physiological mechanisms God built into our design to protect us from starvation.

So if you’ve been wondering why everybody else seems to have their stuff together except you,  or why you can’t just control yourself around food, I want you to know…

You are not alone. You are not weak. You are not broken.

You might be thinking, “But I’m not eating too little. I’m eating too much” or “I’m only trying to eat healthy and stay away from bad foods.” 

If so, it’s essential that you hear this. This pendulum effect happens even when we don’t think our eating is too restrictive. Because no matter how much we try, our diet-influenced minds don’t get to decide what our bodies need. It’s our minds that need to learn from our bodies what our bodies need. Not the other way around. That’s how God designed us.

Here’s how I see it. This is all by God’s design and He’s a good Dad, right? The best Dad? (Matt 7:9-11, 1 John 3:1)

Would a good Dad intentionally make something impossible, then expect, or demand that His kids do that impossible thing? 

I don’t think so. That’s abuse. A wild kind of evil abuse. I don’t think that’s our good God. 

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So far I’ve talked about God’s design for our individual bodies. What about God’s design for His Church?

When I step back and look at the bigger picture, it’s heartbreakingly clear what a huge distraction dieting and Diet Culture are for the Church. It is so effective at distracting us from our true purpose. 

It has us hyperfocused on ourselves - our food, our calories, our weight. But our life is no longer just about us. And it’s definitely not just about our size. 

The purpose of the Christian Church is to allow Holy Spirit to knit us together as one body so that we can carry on Jesus’ mission. And what did Jesus see His mission as? 

To preach the gospel to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind, and to set the oppressed free, proclaiming the Lord's favor. (Luke 4:18-19, from Isaiah 61:1-2) 

We’ve got an important job to do. We’re designed to come together in all our gloriously messy unity to reflect God’s love, truth and goodness to the World. Joining Him in His fierce opposition to injustice - the oppression, abuse and neglect of the vulnerable. 

I think of it as The Family Business. We’ve been born into the Family (John 1:12, Rom 8:16) and now we’re a part of The Family Business.

And The Family Business isn’t a part time summer job. It’s not an optional hobby when we’ve got the time. It’s the reason why we’re still here. And it requires a lot from us.

And yet, Diet Culture requires even more from us. “What does it require of us”, you ask?

It requires all of our attention. 

It requires that we exercise maximum control over an impossible goal.

It requires that we show constant vigilance in our fight against our body’s life-saving fail-safes.

It requires that we anguish over every bite. 

It requires maximum efficiency and productivity while living in a perpetual energy deficit.

It requires that we judge ourselves and our day based on how good or bad we’ve been.

It requires everything. 

We’re left scrambling to distribute whatever is left over. Our work. Our relationships. Our kids. Our rest. Our time with God.

And that’s just for ourselves and those closest to us. What about our neighbors? Our community?

I’m struck by this stark contrast. What does God require of us? To love mercy and kindness, to do justice, to walk humbly with our God. (Micah

When I hold both of these designs in my hands - Diet Culture demands in one hand and the purpose of God’s Church in the other - it’s clear to me that they don’t fit. My hands aren’t big enough to hold them both. 

I don’t have the capacity to focus on both. And Diet Culture (with its inherent Healthism) demands that I make this pursuit my top priority. It demands that I first, and foremost, demonstrate perfect control over my food, weight and health before I can even think of moving onto anything else. When I believe that there’s no way that I could do both. 

Even if I wanted to try to eat “perfectly” (which at one time I did) in order to shrink my body and control my health, I can’t. I’m not designed for that. None of us are. So we never get to move onto anything else. We’re stuck. Forever fighting a losing battle against our body as it works so hard to save our life.

We aren’t designed for dieting or for this Diet Culture. We’re designed for more. For so much more.