52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 35

I just finished Women Food and God by Geneen Roth. First of all I need to preface that I think I have a fairly healthy body image and view of food. I won't deny that I could stand to lose some weight, but I don't have some out-of-control lifestyle that this book speaks of. I do have friends who struggle with weight issues in the extreme sense and know people that have fought all their lives to achieve {or maintain} a perfect weight.

In a rather irreverent way, the author talks about how our relationships to food effect every part of our lives. Until an individual learns to love themselves, they will never be able to let go of their addictions to food.

There were a handful of passages that stuck out to me from this book:

There are many ways to bolt. Walking out the door. Renting a helicopter. Distracting yourself... blaming someone else, getting into a fight, comparing yourself to other people, dreaming about life in the future, recalling life in the past, never getting deeply involved. Eating.

...when you eat when you are not hungry, you are using food as a drug, grappling with boredom or illness or loss or grief of emptiness or loneliness or rejection.

If you actually listen to what your body (not your mind) wants, you'll discover that it doesn't want three weeks of hot fudge sundaes...

We want to know wonder and delight and passions and if instead we've given up on ourselves, if we've vacated our longings, if we left possibility behind, we will feel an emptiness we can't name.

If you worry that not finishing the food on your plate is a slap in the face to all the hungry people everywhere, you are not living in reality. The truth is that either you will throw your food out or you will eat it, but either way it turns to waste. World hunger will not be solved by finishing he garlic mashed potatoes on your plate.

I don't subscribe to the author's view of God as presented in this book. However I do believe that how we act on our addictions {to food or other things} is a reflection of our brokenness. My friend, Sally, wrote a blog post about the show The Biggest Loser that speaks of a need for God to fix the brokenness {and our eating habits}.

An excerpt from her post:

America, if we really want to lose the weight and keep it off, we have to combine healthy living with a healthy soul. Otherwise every person is doomed to fail in this quest. This battle comes from our earthly nature, and the victory will only come from the Spirit of God.