religion helping health issues?

[gordon]

should religion concentrate more on tackling problems such as obesity?

 

[Green Gaia]

And how would religions do that?

 

[Sunstone]

should religion concentrate more on tackling problems such as obesity?

If you believe the body is a temple of God, and that we will be held responsible by God for our care of it, then perhaps religion should tackle health issues. But, as Maize said, how?

 

[Green Gaia]

The UU church I attended in Ky offered yoga classes along with Buddhist meditation. Does that count?

 

[spacemonkey]

Gluttony is considered wrong by the majority of religous beliefs, aside rom that I don't see anything religion can do about it. It does make me angry that some bad habits (like smoking) have been villanized in this country, while others are encouraged (would you like that SUPER SIZED). The real problem with obesity in the USA is corn. Yes, thats right, I said CORN. Farmers grow way to much of this stuff (in fact, the government pays some farmers NOT to grow it because we have so much) that the food industry had to find something to do with it all. Enter high-fructose corn syrup. Food manufaturers started replacing sugar as a sweetener with said corn syrup because of the much lower cost, even though it has a MUCH higher caloric value.

AMERICANS ARE GETTING FAT ON THE CORN!!!

 

[Valjean]

Doesn't Christianity consider the body God's temple? Perhaps religion could point out that unhealthful practices such as overeating defile God's temple and are insulting to God.

 

[Bishka]

I think that our faiths/non-faiths, whatever should encourage us to be healthy, I know in the LDS faith(mine) we have the Word of Wisdom, which is a health code.

 

[spacemonkey]

Doesn't Christianity consider the body God's temple? Perhaps religion could point out that unhealthful practices such as overeating defile God's temple and are insulting to God.

Gluttony is one of the 7 deadly sins of christian dogma.

 

[Green Gaia]

spacemonkey, I have heard about the corn, but I think it is a bigger (no pun intended) issue than just that. We Americans eat too much of the wrong foods, exercise too little and have too much stress in our lives. We need to get all of those things under control and start living a healthy lifestyle.

So, I think individual churches, if this was a concern for them, could do something about it on a congregational level. Here's what (roughly) UUs would do after we took a vote on whether to do it or not: 1) form a committee on health and fitness to oversee and organize all activites, 2) found out the needs and talents of people in the congregation (what can they can, who can offer to teach classes, do we have any doctors or fitness professionals in the house?), 3) have workshops and classes on nutrition, cooking, fitness, etc., 4) offer fitness classes such as aerobics, yoga, bicycling, etc to the congregation...

Why haven't we yet? I guess it's not a big enough concern, or we're too busy with other projects and programs.

 

[gordon]

I've acknowledged all the comments, but I have to say religion could do a lot. For example Americans are getting fatter and fatter and there's no stopping them. If they've got so much corn, why not encourage giving it to the poor and starving in other countries? Religion promoting the donating of food could have a significant effect helping the needy as well as curbing the problem of mass obesity in the USA. I'm sure Americans would rather have a reputation as a healthy nation instead of being known as lardy fat people.

 

[Bishka]

I've acknowledged all the comments, but I have to say religion could do a lot. For example Americans are getting fatter and fatter and there's no stopping them. If they've got so much corn, why not encourage giving it to the poor and starving in other countries? Religion promoting the donating of food could have a significant effect helping the needy as well as curbing the problem of mass obesity in the USA. I'm sure Americans would rather have a reputation as a healthy nation instead of being known as lardy fat people.

The LDS church does this with their cannerys, bishop storehouses, tithing checks and fast checks. This is all donated to the hungry and the needy.

 

[spacemonkey]

We Americans eat too much of the wrong foods

There was no such thing as a "wrong food" before they started adding the corn syrup to everything. The addition of corn syrup increases the caloric value of foods its added to exponentally, sometimes actually exceeding the caloric value of all the other ingrediants (i.e. soda).

 

[spacemonkey]

For example Americans are getting fatter and fatter and there's no stopping them. If they've got so much corn, why not encourage giving it to the poor and starving in other countries?

The church DOES encourage charity, but in a capitalist society you can't expect someone (in this case the farmers) to give away the fruit of their labors for nothing. Agriculture in this country is not run by the state or the church, but by consumers, just like everything else.

 

[Green Gaia]

There was no such thing as a "wrong food" before they started adding the corn syrup to everything. The addition of corn syrup increases the caloric value of foods its added to exponentally, sometimes actually exceeding the caloric value of all the other ingrediants (i.e. soda).

Good point... it's a systemic problem.