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Christian diet programs are books and other name-brand products promoting weight-loss diets and other diets that the authors believe are consistent with Christian rules and values. They may borrow elements from Jewish dietary laws, the Bible, modern nutrition science, or other sources. Christian diet and exercise programs became popular in the 1970s. [1] They differ from historical, non-commercial Christian dietary traditions, such as not eating meat on Fridays.
Annual revenues in excess of US$1 billion have been estimated for the US market. [2] Christian diet books have been bestsellers in the US religion market. [3] Some have complex marketing programs, with spinoffs, in-person meetings, commercially produced dietary supplements, and other ways to generate revenue.
Most Christian diet programs are calorie-reduction and exercise programs that have a veneer of Christian behavior over the surface. [4] Exercise classes feature contemporary Christian music instead of secular music. [4] Group meetings begin and end in prayer, and books include Bible verses. [4] [2] Within that context, they can be further subdivided into two categories:
Christian diet programs allow adherents to engage in a secular activity (weight loss) with a secular goal (becoming thin or attractive) while maintaining a distinctive religious cultural identity. [3] This happens through a process of cooptation or cultural appropriation of exercise and dieting from the secular culture. [3] In style and substance, Christian diet programs influence and are influenced by the evangelical Christian community, secular views on weight loss, the medical and scientific community's approaches to health and fitness, and non-Christian fitness and dieting programs, including yoga. [2] For example, some Christian diet programs promote their medical and scientific content, and some secular diet programs have begun promoting weight loss as a spiritual act. [2]
Early Christian diet programs emphasized the overweight person's sin and guilt. [1] Over time, Christian programs changed their message away from guilt and fat shaming towards treating overeating as a type of addiction or psychological problem. [1] This shift mirrored the changes in secular diet and fitness books at the same time. [1]
Also like non-religious diet programs, the Christian diet authors associate being overweight with individual character flaws and a lack of self-control, rather than systemic factors associated with poor diet, over-consumption of food, and a sedentary lifestyle. [3] (Examples of systemic factors related to obesity include government policy decisions that make driving more common than biking or walking, or that subsidize the production of refined sugar and grains instead of fresh fruits and vegetables.)
Secular weight-loss programs often ascribe overeating to the person feeling empty in some way, such as having an unfulfilling social or emotional life. The main difference between these programs and Christian weight-loss programs is that the person's emptiness is believed to be spiritual in nature. [3]
Christian diet programs tend to be associated with evangelicalism in the United States but with no particular Christian denomination. [2]
Many Christian diet programs are associated with the health and wealth gospel idea, and treat health as a primary end goal, rather than as means for living out Christian values. [4] In this mindset, being healthy and thin, rather than Christian values such as love, becomes a "new measuring tape for godliness and spirituality". [4] Some Christian diet programs are "alarmingly close to depicting a God who loves a size six woman more than a size 16". [1]
Most mainstream diet programs support hegemonic standards for external beauty. [3] This is the idea that there is one best type of physical appearance, which is thin for women and muscular for men. Christian diet programs disclaim this, encourage the development of inner beauty, and warn their adherents against vanity and pursuing external beauty. [3] They emphasize that adherents should undertake their diet and exercise programs with the correct motivations, which are for physical, emotional, and spiritual health. [3]
Christian diet programs promote the idea that the human body is a temple that must be kept holy. [2] They have been criticized for then equating having a thin, physically beautiful body with being holy and righteous. [2] A commonly cited Bible verse is 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, which Christian diet programs say means that it is sinful to be overweight. Critics interpret this differently, such as by saying that people should try to be healthy, or that people should honor God regardless of their appearance. [2]
Program | Brief description | Commercial products |
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The Maker's Diet by Jordan S. Rubin | 40-day temporary food plan based on whole, unprocessed foods, especially vegetables, fruits, and raw nuts, and fasting for half a day once a week. [5] Rubin recommends avoiding the meat of unclean animals. The tone of the books has been compared to an infomercial. [6] Rubin's two private companies, Garden of Life and Beyond Organic, have sold tens of millions of dollars worth of dietary supplements and other products. [7] They have been the subject of FDA enforcement actions for making unsubstantiated claims. [4] | Books, dietary supplements, soap, dentifrice |
What Would Jesus Eat? by Don Colbert | This book promotes the modern Mediterranean diet as being similar to what people in Israel during the first century, including the historical Jesus, would likely have eaten. [5] [4] | Book |
Losing to Live by Steve Reynolds | A 12-week fitness and counseling program that promotes exercise and healthy foods. It uses one of the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt have no other gods before me, to position overeating as a form of idolatry. [4] The program is a weight-loss competition. [2] The founder has also written several books, including one titled Bod4God. | Weekly in-person meetings, books |
Weigh Down Workshop by Gwen Shamblin | This program was most popular in the 1990s, when its popularity in the US was close to that of some secular weight-loss programs. [1] [4] It addressed weight loss in the context of food addiction. [4] In 2000, the founder disclaimed belief in the orthodox Christian views of the Trinity, resulting in the loss of publishing contracts and accusations that she is a cult leader and a heretic. [2] | Books, in-person meetings, website, church |
Prayer walk | This is a generic, rather than name-brand program. Participants walk while praying. This combines gentle physical exercise with praying in a particular place. [8] | Books, DVDs, online groups, in-person groups |
Praise Aerobics by Sheri Chambers | An example of exercise programs, this aerobics video program sold 50,000 copies in 1996, equal to a gold record for music videos. [9] | VHS tape |
Free to Be Thin by Neva Coyle and Marie Chapian | This 13-week program is one of the more popular. [3] It opposes fad diets, junk food, and artificial diet foods. [9] Later, after Coyle regained the weight she had once lost, she promoted exercise and other healthful habits for obese women, without weight loss as a goal. [9] | Books |
Pray Your Weight Away by Charles Shedd | One of the first modern weight loss books marketed as a Christian approach to dieting, this was published in 1957. [1] Shedd later published two more blunt-spoken, fat-shaming, best-selling books about overeating as evidence of spiritual and personal failures. [3] | Books |
Body and Soul Aerobics | This in-person exercise class is promoted to churches as way of recruiting new church members. [1] | |
Hallelujah Diet by George Malkmus | This diet is largely raw foodism, which Malkmus claims was the diet in the Garden of Eden. [3] Malkmus also objects to modern medical interventions, such as surgery. [3] | Books, dietary supplements, household products |
3D Plan by Carol Showalter | This diet program is named after three areas of emphasis: individual discipline, diet, and discipleship. [3] This program promotes medical and scientific advice about the health benefits of having a normal body mass index (BMI). [3] | Books |
WholyFit | Framed as a Bible study about health and fitness. [2] | Exercise classes and videos |
First Place 4 Health | Framed as a Bible study about health and fitness. [2] | Books, in-person meetings, household products, online groups |
The Daniel Plan by Rick Warren, Daniel Amen, and Mark Hyman | 40-day plan based on the story of Daniel eating vegetables and water instead of meat and wine. | Books, videos, in-person meetings, online group |
Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated way to decrease, maintain, or increase body weight, or to prevent and treat diseases such as diabetes and obesity. As weight loss depends on calorie intake, different kinds of calorie-reduced diets, such as those emphasising particular macronutrients, have been shown to be no more effective than one another. As weight regain is common, diet success is best predicted by long-term adherence. Regardless, the outcome of a diet can vary widely depending on the individual.
Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it can potentially have negative effects on health. People are classified as obese when their body mass index (BMI)—a person's weight divided by the square of the person's height—is over 30 kg/m2; the range 25–30 kg/m2 is defined as overweight. Some East Asian countries use lower values to calculate obesity. Obesity is a major cause of disability and is correlated with various diseases and conditions, particularly cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, obstructive sleep apnea, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis.
Gwendolyn Henley Shamblin Lara was the founder of the Remnant Fellowship Church, founder of the Christian diet program The Weigh Down Workshop, and an American author.
Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health, or physical fitness, refers to a reduction of the total body mass, by a mean loss of fluid, body fat, or lean mass. Weight loss can either occur unintentionally because of malnourishment or an underlying disease, or from a conscious effort to improve an actual or perceived overweight or obese state. "Unexplained" weight loss that is not caused by reduction in calorific intake or increase in exercise is called cachexia and may be a symptom of a serious medical condition.
A fad diet is a diet that is popular, generally only for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard scientific dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements; as such it is often considered a type of pseudoscientific diet. Fad diets are usually not supported by clinical research and their health recommendations are not peer-reviewed, thus they often make unsubstantiated statements about health and disease.
WW International, Inc., formerly Weight Watchers International, Inc., is a global company headquartered in the U.S. that offers weight loss and maintenance, fitness, and mindset services such as the Weight Watchers comprehensive diet program. Founded in 1963 by Queens, New York City homemaker Jean Nidetch, WW's program has three options as of 2019: online via its mobile app and website, coaching online or by phone, or in-person meetings.
In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management reasons. Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos. This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy.
Body for Life (BFL) is a 12-week nutrition and exercise program, and also an annual physique transformation competition. The program utilizes a low-fat high-protein diet. It was created by Bill Phillips, a former competitive bodybuilder and previous owner of EAS, a manufacturer of nutritional supplements. It has been popularized by a bestselling book of the same name.
A healthy diet is a diet that maintains or improves overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients such as protein, micronutrients such as vitamins, and adequate fibre and food energy.
Fat feminism, often associated with "body-positivity", is a social movement that incorporates feminist themes of equality, social justice, and cultural analysis based on the weight of a woman. This branch of feminism intersects misogyny and sexism with anti-fat bias. Fat feminists advocate body-positive acceptance for all bodies, regardless of their weight, as well as eliminating biases experienced directly or indirectly by fat people. Fat feminists originated during third-wave feminism and is aligned with the fat acceptance movement. A significant portion of body positivity in the third-wave focused on embracing and reclaiming femininity, such as wearing makeup and high heels, even though the second-wave fought against these things. Contemporary western fat feminism works to dismantle oppressive power structures which disproportionately affect working class poor people or poor people generally. It covers a wide range of topics such as diet culture, fat-phobia, representation in media, ableism, and employment discrimination.
Nathan Pritikin was an American inventor, engineer, nutritionist and longevity researcher. He promoted the Pritikin diet, a high-carbohydrate low-fat plant-based diet combined with regular aerobic exercise to prevent cardiovascular disease. The Pritikin diet emphasizes the consumption of legumes, whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables and non-fat dairy products with small amounts of lean meat, fowl and fish.
Being overweight is having more body fat than is optimally healthy. Being overweight is especially common where food supplies are plentiful and lifestyles are sedentary.
Intermittent fasting is any of various meal timing schedules that cycle between voluntary fasting and non-fasting over a given period. Methods of intermittent fasting include alternate-day fasting, periodic fasting, such as the 5:2 diet, and daily time-restricted eating.
The South Beach Diet is a popular fad diet developed by Arthur Agatston and promoted in his bestselling 2003 book. It emphasizes eating food with a low glycemic index, and categorizes carbohydrates and fats as "good" or "bad". Like other fad diets, it may have elements which are generally recognized as sensible, but it promises benefits not backed by supporting evidence or sound science.
Obesity in the Middle East and North Africa is a notable health issue. Out of the 15 fattest nations in the world as of 2014, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), five were located in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Management of obesity can include lifestyle changes, medications, or surgery. Although many studies have sought effective interventions, there is currently no evidence-based, well-defined, and efficient intervention to prevent obesity.
Coaches are professional tutors who have expertise in their preferred area of study. Weight loss coaches, specifically, have clientele within the health and fitness industry.
Body shape refers to the many physical attributes of the human body that make up its appearance, including size and countenance. Body shape has come to imply not only sexual/reproductive ability, but wellness and fitness. In the West, slenderness is associated with happiness, success, youth, and social acceptability. Being overweight is associated with laziness. The media promote a weight-conscious standard for women more often than for men. Deviance from these norms result in social consequences. The media perpetuate this ideal in various ways, particularly glorifying and focusing on thin actors and actresses, models, and other public figures while avoiding the use or image of overweight individuals. This thin ideal represents less than 15% of the American population.
A fitness app is an application that can be downloaded on any mobile device and used anywhere to get fit. Fitness apps are designed to help with exercise, other types of physical training, nutrition and diet, and other ways to get fit.
The 20th century saw multiple trends and changes in women's fitness culture.