Health as Nonviolence.

Friday was a wake-up call.  It was the sort of sirens blaring in my ear kind of wake-up call.  Last year at this time, I ran a half marathon after months of consistent training.  It was not a fast time, but I ran the whole 13.1 miles.  Last Friday was the walk-a-thon at my kids’ school and I volunteer to walk with kindergarten.  It was a rough half-mile course of shame.  I was out of breath and unable to keep up with energetic six-year-olds.  It is amazing what a year can do, or in this case, undo.   A combination of nursing school, a harsh winter, and comfort eating has left me overweight, sluggish, and low on energy.   This is not a situation I intended to be in and yet this is exactly where I find myself.

Over the past year, I have thought a lot about food.  On Monday I heard a new thought referenced to Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter – access to and consuming healthy food is an act of nonviolence.   Or to flip it, filling my body with comfort foods that provide little nourishment and dull the stress is an act of violence against my body.  I work a lot with adolescents who engage in cutting behaviors.  These are violent acts that typically frighten friends and family (and the scars are often a cry for help that should not be ignored).  Cutting creates shock due to its extreme behaviors.  Can we draw a similarity with our own food choices?   I choose toxins to dull my pain, gain a few pounds, and no one says a word.  We have become desensitized to the effects of obesity and our addiction to sugar.  Yet, if we really think about it, is it not an act of violence against our bodies? 

And let us step further and look at food and community.  We live in a prosperous country and yet we have food deserts.  There is a genuine lack of healthy food options that are affordable and accessible to much of our neighbors.  If health is a basic human right, then what am I doing to end the injustice?   How much harm has my silence on this matter caused?

Our bodies are a tabernacle of Christ.  As a Christ-bearer, do I treat my own body with dignity, respect, and honor?  Sadly, I often forget that I am called to love with my whole being, including my physical body.  If my own body is worn down, exhausted, and lethargic because I have continuously poisoned it with rows of Oreoes (not that an occasional Oreo is a bad thing), it is more than my own personal problem.  My choices, my responsibility as a Christ-bearer impacts the greater Community around me.

And if others we encounter are Christ, how do we treat them?  If they are hungry, do we feed them?  Do we feed ramen noodles and the canned goods that no one really likes?  Or do we truly nourish those around us?  Do we work to provide access to fresh fruits and vegetables or are we content to provide fillers of empty calories?  What if our food pantries were stocked with fresh produce and tips on how to prepare a nutritious and delicious meal?  What if our food deserts were filled with produce stands?  What if when we gathered together we served quality foods that honor our bodies and the Christ that lives within us?  What if we begin a conversation about holistic health as a social justice issue?  I wonder where this might take us...

If you are interested in a 20 minute talk on how community can fight obesity and diabetes, then I encourage you to watch the Ted Talk linked here.