What’s the difference between intuitive eating and faith-based weight loss plans? Is there a problem with losing weight to honor God? Yep.

Here’s the problem with making weight loss a goal in a faith based practice. The following scenario happens far too often.

So, I was recently at a small group where we were talking about this topic: taking care of the whole person and honoring God with our bodies.

Yes, I am down with that! Great!

Several books were then brought out. Faith- based weight loss plans. They may be guised as health and wellness, but they really are faith-based dieting books where the goal is weight loss. 

Oh no! I am NOT down with this! 

Here are the 6 reasons we need to eliminate faith-based weight loss plans.

#1. God doesn’t tell us to lose weight

There is nowhere in the Bible that God tells us we are supposed to be a certain size or weight. Rather, He tells us that we are made in His image. 

#2. Intentional weight loss DOES NOT WORK

Research shows that intentional weight loss fails 95 to 97% of the time. It just doesn’t work. People cannot lose weight and keep it off. We are not biologically designed to do that. Have you experience the diet cycle of losing weight and gaining it all back? Girl, you are not broken. Your body is doing what it is designed to do. 

 #3. Being “fat” doesn’t make you sick.

According to research on this topic it is quite clear that being fat does not directly cause disease. Therefore, being fat does not cause diabetes. It does not cause heart disease. Being in a larger body does not cause all the obesity related diseases. They are associated. 

But, association is not causation. 

Many lifestyle factors may lead to the disease and may lead to having fat on your body– larger bodies, “obesity”. But, fat in and of itself does not cause the diseases. We can see that so clearly because when people adopt a healthy lifestyle and start doing helpful behaviors, their health improves. even when they don’t lose weight. 

#4. Faith-based weight loss plans set us up for failure

Faith-based weight loss plans are problematic because we proclaim that if you have enough faith you’ll lose weight. We present this imaginary world where if you have enough faith, if you have enough self- control, if you’re a good enough Christian, you’ll be able to lose the weight and keep it off. When we are biologically not designed to do that. 

People try faith based approaches of losing weight, and they inevitably fail because our basic biology, the way God created us to be, goes against the very nature of dieting. We wind up in the restrict binge cycle. Believing that we must not have enough faith or self control or be good enough Christians. Guilt and shame become a part of us. 

#5. Acting like body size is a moral choice leads to discrimination

This downward spiral of shame makes us not want to pursue healthy behaviors. Rather than seeking medical care, we internalize the shame about our weight, lack of self control, and self-perceived laziness. This guilt and shame leads to stress and internal battles that we sit with and fight alone.

Women are no strangers to stress, and the stress surrounding weight stigma is crippling. Our sisters in Christ face discrimination in the church, at the doctor’s office, out in the world, and most heavily in their own homes with their own mirrors and their own scales. This chronic stress leads to chronic inflammation, chronic diseases, and poor well-being overall. That’s what leads to these so-called “obesity” associated diseases: stress. 

#6 Faith based weight loss plans can lead to or worsen eating disorders

Therefore, watching a faith-based weight loss plan be recommended in a group of women that is supposed to be a safe space of people pursuing Jesus literally gives me an anxiety attack. It causes my heart to pound and my stomach to turn because I know that at least 1 in 5 women struggle with an eating disorder. I know how many women carry out disordered eating and exercise behaviors everyday. I also know that dieting substantially increases the likelihood of developing an eating disorder.

There is a good chance that a woman sitting next to you in your small group has struggled with bulimia, anorexia, orthorexia, binge eating disorder, or other disordered eating behaviors (no you can’t tell be looking at her). Over the years she may have felt so much guilt and shame at her inability to stick to the diet and lose the weight. Think about how a faith-based diet book may affect her? 

Let’s not set our Sisters in Christ up for failure

We know that people can’t lose weight and keep it off without unhealthy/disordered eating behaviors. Diet plans set them up to fail. Encouraging weight loss as a spiritual practice is setting the stage for guilt and shame. It’s setting them up for a strained relationship with food, exercise and their bodies. Dieting breeds eating disorders, poor health and well-being, and weight stigmatization and discrimination.

There is a better way…

Intuitive eating reconciles this disconnect between diet culture and honoring God with our bodies. By embracing an intuitive eating lifestyle, we truly dig into what God wants for us rather than pursuing skinny. We don’t have to do these diet plans or have a certain body size, shape, or ability to earn our worth or prove anything to anyone.

Learn more about Intuitive Eating with the link below.

What is Intuitive Eating? 3 Easy Strategies to Get Started for Christian Women

You see, faith-based weight loss plans are not about honoring God. They’re about vanity. They’re about diet culture. They’re about fitting in with this world. And, quite frankly, I’m not about that. 

There will be no weigh-in in heaven.