The separation of church and food: weight is not a moral issue.

If there is no morality around food choice, then stop assigning morality around weight. Being overweight is not a moral failing. Losing weight is not a moral win. Yet we somehow have turned someone’s weight into a referendum around who they are.

As a person in recovery from a lifetime of alcoholism and drug addiction this is personal. One of the biggest barriers to getting help is the tendency of people to apply morality to the cause of addiction. A misunderstanding of the neurological always and physiological adaptations that take place to cause addiction. It is a medical and psychological condition that must be attacked with a behavioral and scientific methodology. Religion doesn’t fix biology.

Tides are changing as people who always thought themselves impervious from drug addiction (while ignoring the prevalence of  active alcoholism) are seeing their communities ravaged by drugs. An unfettered pharmaceutical industry can have that effect. But I digress, because these same communities still have a similar view on obesity. They view it as weakness or stupidity or lack of discipline. They’re 100% wrong.

So when I was actively drinking there was no physical way for me to safely stop without medical intervention. There was no behavioral way for me to stay stopped without psychological intervention. It’s a clinical and behavioral solution. Yet when people find out where I’ve been and see how I am their view of me changes. They view me as someone “strong” or “disciplined” or “of great character”. This is the apex of cognitive dissonance. If addiction isn’t defined by weakness then recovery can’t be defined by strength. Sorry. There are no heroes or villains here. Just people. There are drug addicted angels and sober pieces of shit.

There is no morality tied to weight. In fact, obesity is the direct result of our efficiency at creating a solution to the world’s longest lasting problem: food scarcity. We’ve created such calorie dense foods at such a low price that we’ve gone from starvation to diabetes. We’ve created a problem and have no real solution except shame and platitudes.

Stop with the morality plays around obesity. Weight does not define character. Being overweight does not mean someone is weak or undisciplined. And having abs doesn’t equate some greater good. In fact, it might come with a lot of baggage. How we look has no bearing on who we are.