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ULIE JONES says Gwen Shamblin compulsive overeating. The real problem is spiritual: get
saved her life. Jones, a fortysome- right with God, stop trying to fill your God-shaped hole
thing homemaker and mother of with food, and your figure will improve.
two who was overweight since her So Shamblin, 45, does not prescribe a specific menu; she
teens, had tried "every diet under does not encourage readers to cut out "empty calories"
the sun-Jenny Craig, Weight from their diets; she does not chastise those who keep
Watchers, the grapefruit diet. If Oreos in the cupboard and M&ms in the desk drawer; she
you've heard of it, I've tried it." But does not suggest snacking on dried apricots or substituting
Jones could not manage to keep off sorbet for ice cream.
the weight. Even when she "suc- Instead, she focuses on helping disciples discem when
cessfully reduced," the pounds slowly crept back. Every they are physiologicall hungry- "[F]ind [the] rumbling of
month, Jones combed the health and dieting sections of her acid underneath the ribs.... If you are not sure that this
local Borders bookstore, looking for a new dieting scheme feelng is hunger, just wait a little longer." Once you know
that would make the difference. you are truly hungry, rather than just cravig food to fill an
"Then I found Gwen," Jones says, describing her intro- emotional or spiritual need, you can eat whatever foods
duction to Shamblin in terms some reserve for Jesus. And, you want to-simply stop when you are full.
in a sense, Shamblin's book was her salvation. "I opened Shamblin, whose luminous smile, big blonde hair, and
The Weigh Down Diet and I knew then and there that it was petite figure bring to mnind a Southem Barbie dol, is just
going to cha my life forever. Realy, it saved me." At a one of many people who have made a profession out of
size 14, Jones was in litte danger of deati due to medical providing dieting and fitness resources to weight-conscious
obesity, but she was contemplating suicide. "I was in Christians. Trimn and toned, Shamblin may not look like she
despair. 1 felt ugly and fat, and my husband had lost all has ever struggled with overeating, but it has been an issue
t interest in me. He made it quite clear that he did not want for her. "I was a thin eater growing up," she confesses in
to touch me until I got the weight off, I thouht I may as The Weigh Down Diet. But in college, overwhelmed by the
well just end it, you know. Ufe that fat just didn't seem availability and variety of food at the campus "megacafete-
worth living." na" and late-night delis, Shamblin gained the "freshman
What was the message that distinguished The Weigh 15." She took the pounds off easily in 1982 simply by mim-
Down Diet from the other dieting guides? "Shamblin," says icking the eating habits of a skinny friend, who ate only
Jones, "tells overweight women what we want to hear: yOU when she was hungry and rarely consumed all the food on
don't have to starve yourself to lose. Overeating is a prob- her plate. She says she's never been more than 20 pounds
lem of the soul. Put your spiitual hife in order and you will over her precollege weight, but her obsession with food left
lose weight, without cutting out the foods you love from her feeling enslaved.
your daily diet." in time Shamblin combined the eating habits of her thin
People should not be obsessed with food, Shamblin friend with a renewed focus on God: when she felt like eat-
argues, and counting calories is every bit as obsessive as ing but knew she wasn't hungry, she took it as a call to read
54 CH RI ST IAN IT Y TOD AY I S e p t em b e r 4, 2 00 0
shown to be true, thinking it doesn't apply to us as says. "This has rejuvenated our entire spiritual life."
Christians," she says. "Through Weigh Down, people trade But according to some observers, Christians should be
an obsessive focus on food for an all-out focus on God, and cautious about embracing Shamblin's brand of theology.
there's freedom there, but that's where it ends." . Kelly Williamsen applauds the workshop's "strong affirma-
What are the nutritional teachings of which Smith is so tion that God, as Creator, acted with incredible wisdom in
critical? "Almost everything your body needs your body the formation of our bodies." But she worries that
produces: lecithin, cholesterol, brain cells, protein. The Shamblin's axiom, "we can love either food or God," fails
main thing your body needs is just gasoline to run it," to recognize that people can love "several people and/or
Shamblin writes in The Weigh Down Diet. "So God in his things at one time. Is it true that all of the longings and
genius put all these nutrients in almost all foods--protein, empty spaces we find within ourselves are only a quest for
carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, water, and minerals. They more of God? Maybe we also eat when we are longing for
vary in percentage. Your liver can take those, move the companionship, community, family."
configurations of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen Shamblin's enthusiastic following suggests that she goes
around, and can turn a carbohydrate into a protein and so way beyond the status of simply a dieting figurehead; for
forth." She adds that she gets the exact nutrients her body droves of Weigh Downers, she is a major spiritual leader.
needs: "All I do is listen to my senses." To have become such an influential voice on spiritual
"To the layman's ear this sounds great," says Smith. "But matters, Shamblin has very little theological heft behind her
you can't trust that your body will tell you what it needs. It teachings-and she doesn't see the need for oversight from
doesn't have a mechanism, deep in your soul, that says, outside pastors or theologians. Her approach to Scripture
'My muscles are breaking down, I need protein."' relies heavily on freestyle prooftexting. In her books and
Shamblin suggests that her critics' self-interest may be videos, she has adopted the Exodus story as an elaborate
clouding their judgment. "Nutritionists would love for us metaphor for America's bondage to dieting. ("The Israelites
to keep the industry going by telling us how complicated stayed in Egypt for 430 years," she writes in Rise Above,
things are," she says. "and then they cried out for a Savior. America has been in a
mess for decades, and we have cried out to God again and
CRAID-SCALE REVIVAL again to remove this fat and save us from this burden.")
It is easy to see why Shamblin's program has been so popu- Concerned lately with all the "false information" circu-
lar. Overweight people are often desperate for a solution, lating about food, weight, and nutrition, Shamblin refers to
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Sferra to faith in Christ. Sferra, a California wife and moth- Christians describing past sins, authors of Christian dieting
er, began working with Halliday after yo-yoing with Jenny books tell their readers they can sympathize with weight
Craig and other diets. struggles by recounting their own battles of the bulge.
Sferra's experience with religion had always been "about But have Christian dieters simply bought into a worldly
ceremony, doing it because you had to, walking through standard? After all, the underlying assumption that pro-
the motions," but Halliday seemed to present something grams like Weigh Down share with the more disciplined
more than empty ritual. The two talked about a perfect programs like 3D is the notion that God wants people to be
love that was not performance-based. Soon Halliday invit- thin. Although evangelicals are typically outspoken in their
ed Sferra to church and later gave her a Bible. "Judy asked analysis of worldliness, weight is one area where we seem
me if I was ready to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and to have embraced a worldly aesthetic uncritically.
welcome God into my heart. I said I'd never said that out As a writer in Daughters of Sarah put it, "The message,
loud, but this time I wvas ready. Now I'm walking through whether blatant or subtle, is that fat-is-sin-and-the-right-
my life buttressed by the Spirit. And to think it all started eous-are-thin-amen."
because I thought I was 20 pounds overweight!" Evangelism is one of the most popular justifications for
Sferra is not alone. Christian dieting programs have Christians jumping on the weight-loss bandwagon. First
helped many non-Christians come to faith. Secular folks Place's Carole Lewis teaches that a slender appearance is
who want to slim down see a coworker or neighbor who crucial to being an effective witness, "Although God looks