Nutrition through the lens of the Gospel

A wise person once told me that all things can be done and seen through the lens of the Gospel, but it is the things that you, in particular, are able to see do through that lens that show you what God has built you to work and care for in a unique way. One day our eyes wil be fully opened, but for now, we have to pay attention to where we are given the most sight.

Learning and thinking more about nutrition while in med school has been a process that was much more clearly linked to the Gospel (creation, fall, and recreation) then other subjects I’ve studied, though really they could all be linked in such a way.

Here are some threads of one train of thought…

There are many decisions that people think pretty intentionally about. For many, choosing a doctor or dentist or babysitter or school for their children recieves many hours of research, consulting among friends and co-workers about the best options, and even going to try it out before committing. For some, this process is just as involved when choosing a gym, or neighborhood to live in, or place to worship. (on a side note, one way that I would assert the existence of oppression would be the situation when one group of people has many good options when faced with these choices verses a group that has perhaps the same number of options total, but has significanly fewer good ones, hindering the ease and probability of making a choice that will be of greatest benefit).

All of these choices have significant daily consequences on a person’s well-being. To take it to a slightly more detailed level, people make intentional choices about what kind of company they keep, who they date, what media they engage with, what they read, and what kinds of medications they take.

To go with the medication example…when the doctor prescribes a medication, the process is actually pretty involved. First of all, you went to the doctor, so you are getting a professional opinion. Second, the doctor has other people she/he consults with (pharmasist, collegues, and you) to determine a good course of treatment. Then he/she is supposed to teach the patient about the medication- how to take it; when; how much; with what kinds of food; possible side effects…etc. Even for just over the counter tylenol, people read the back labels to know how much to take depending on age/weight, and how often, and what exactlythe effects might be.

Choosing a diet (I don’t mean a weight-loss plan; I mean choosing how we interact with food) should not be any different. On a biochemical level, the food we eat is like medication. It effects every single one of our body functions down to the very ability for us to be alive, and places us on a gradient between life and death. It effects our emotions, physical state, mental state, and spiritual state. (not sure about that? Try fasting. Or try eating a bag of jelly beans all at once). Never would we go the pharmacy shelf in CVS and grab any old medication and take it without considering if it was actually relevent for our illness and what its side effects and dosages are. But we do exactly this with food. I’m not suggesting we become obsessive about every thing we eat. I find it sad, however, that proper nutrition is the easiest and cheapest way to care for our bodies (which leads to care for the rest of ourselves), and yet we often disregard it.

(Granted, not everyone has equal options to eating in a way that cares for their body. Not even everyone has the equal option to eat period. But that isn’t what I’m addessing here. )

The God of our creation cares about our physical being! I’m convinced! If he didn’t, it wouldn’t have been effected by the Fall; He wouldn’t have come to earth as a healer, showing people the nature God in part through physical healing; He wouldn’t promise a bodily resurrection and a day when there is no more sickness. These things wouldn’t matter to a God who didn’t care about our physical being. But instead, we are commanded to love God with mind, heart, soul, and STRENGTH! We aren’t allowed to rank those. What we do with our bodies matters a lot to this God of creation. Just as Christians talk about the need to be spiritually fed and built up, we also need to be nutritionally fed and built up to glorify God in our bodies, which are living temples. Jesus was distessed and even angry to find the temple being turned into a marketplace, filled with things that weren’t meant to be there. Do we care as much when we fill ourselves with things that don’t help us to function as we were meant to and be most alive?

More to come on this topic…

Sorry if it was rambly. In my defense, writing it was my study break between two six hour chunks of study time.