Hungry, Healthy Clergy!
Further Reflections on Healthier Living in Christ

by Dr. Steven Cappa, Clinical Director

In the previous Spring ’05 newsletter, I wrote about the excellent seminal research from Dr. Mark McMinn and his colleagues and graduate students out of Wheaton College. This project addressed various healthy coping activities and strategies common among clergy and their spouses. To review, they found that prayer, time off, hobbies, exercise and, if married, a fulfilling marital relationship are all factors that strongly contribute to a healthy clergy person or couple.

As an extension of this fine research, I’d like to “exercise” some liberties and address an additional factor that we of Marble Retreat feel is extremely important. Eating healthy, practicing good nutrition is a most crucial and foundational aspect of our lives and clergy are most certainly not exempt from this! A great number of the clergy who seek the services at Marble Retreat come here suffering from poor nutrition, eating habits and even obesity! It has already been established that clergy tend to live very fast-paced lives and this lifestyle is not at all conducive to nutritional living so it is common to find our church leaders coming to Marble Retreat suffering in this way as well.

Of course, the problem is much, much bigger than the plight of clergy. . .it is a national problem! There exists a dramatically growing body of research regarding the health trends in this country and the data is not at all good! Obesity is rampant among this nation’s people and the resulting economic burdens, in terms of lost productivity, serious medical problems (meteoric health care costs!) and worst of all, death, are of grave concern.

We Americans are prone to overeating! Furthermore, we are highly prone to over-eating the wrong kinds of foods! We not only eat too much but we eat in a very poor fashion, consuming foods that lack nutritional value. Moreover, today’s restaurants tend to serve huge portions of food, filling oversized plates with more than most people can consume. Nonetheless, we tend to “clean our plates” both in restaurants and in our homes, a good practice except for the fact that those plates tend to hold way too much.

Worse still, our lifestyles are of such a nature that the time involved in preparing a nutritious meal is heavily curtailed so we tend to eat out a lot, consuming what has become known as “fast food”. When we do eat at home, we tend to prepare only those meals that can be put together quickly and eaten quickly. Much of our foods now come to us frozen and prepackaged. The preparation and cooking of fresh foods tends to be the exception rather than the rule and all of this contributes to a less healthy lifestyle.

As we enter into middle age, our bodies enter into a declining phase, marked by a gradual loss of bone, muscle mass and reduced metabolism, among other features. Furthermore, as we age we tend to lose general energy and lapse into a more sedentary lifestyle. This is a very unhealthy, though partly natural pattern. The absolute truth is that “none of us is going to get out of here alive”! We all can look forward to our ultimate launch into Glory. However, we should do whatever we can to prolong our lives here on earth since God has lifelong plans! Furthermore and with great confidence, I can state that we should do nothing to accelerate the process of aging! How can I say this? Let’s turn to our ultimate source of Truth, the Bible. Consider the following scripture reference:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20, NIV)

While this most popular passage refers specifically to sexual immorality, there are obvious larger principles involved. God values these vessels of ours highly! He also makes it clear that these bodies of ours are “on loan,” that they are “not ours but belong to Him.” One might even argue that when we abuse our bodies, we are insulting Him! So, to be sure, we have an ominous responsibility to take appropriate care of ourselves and do nothing to harm these bodies of ours. Of course, to be sure, this is not the same as bodies that are broken because of accident and/or illness. These afflictions are not necessarily by our choice or by our will! However, most of us who overeat or eat poorly do so by will, by choice, often unconsciously, which, is neither healthy nor right before God.

What might one do? First off, let me clearly state, that if it isn’t obvious yet, I am neither a dietician nor a nutritionist! I am merely a 53-year-old concerned participant in all of this! Please exercise wisdom and consult your physician and other specialists in this area. There is better and more research in this problem area in our society than ever before and it is growing (unfortunately, like our bodies!). Having stated this, I’d like to share my current preferences for resource materials. Though not at all Christian in nature, you may have recently seen in the bookstores Bill Phillip’s material, Body for Life (1999, Harper Collins, New York, New York) and the companion volume, Eating for Life (2003, Highpoint Media, Golden, Colorado) (www.bodyforlife.com).

While I’m not a strict devotee of Phillip's model (and there exists some outright unbiblical ideas in it!), I very much like many of the principles which appear to make good sense. Regarding eating, he makes it clear that dieting simply does not work. Dieting implies altering, really dramatically curtailing, one’s eating. While eating less is extremely important in this enterprise, many diets result in people actually starving themselves and this often powerfully contributes to the reported see-saw battle with alternating weight loss and gain that many complain about.

Consider Phillip’s reflections: “People who force themselves to stick with a crash diet will lose body weight, but it’s a very unfavorable type of weight loss. Typically, half of the pounds lost come from muscle tissue that is sacrificed. It’s very important to remember muscle is your body’s metabolic furnace. Muscle uses energy, even while you’re sleeping. Fat pretty much just sits there. . . To make matters worse, when you do go off the diet (which everyone who goes on a very low-calorie diet does at some point), you will gain back the fat you lost, and more." (Body-for-Life, page 43)

In the “Eating for Life” model, Phillips actually advocates eating frequently, though nutritionally, throughout the day! He believes, as do I, that we are actually not supposed to eat just three times per day (breakfast, lunch and dinner). Rather, we ought to eat at least six times per day but taking in smaller meals, perhaps allowing one of those meals to be a larger one for the day. He calls his model the “Right Recipe Model” and emphasizes four very important aspects: the right foods, the right amounts, the right combos and the right times.

The intent of this article is not for myself or Marble Retreat Christian Counseling advocate a particular method or model of healthy living but, rather, to inspire us all to strive for healthier living. Eating right, along with exercise, rest, spiritual growth, etc., are all crucial to this endeavor. Let us all commit to pursuing these attributes, that we might walk ever stronger in Christ and serve Him well!