Eating all you can, can be your last

Eating all you can, can be irresistible. We like to fill our bodies to the full as though the second biggest flood is about to come. Lest we confuse things, eating is different from indulgence.

Sometimes it takes illness to make a person realize indulgence is sin. Unless and until a person is diagnosed to have high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure or the heart is alarmingly coated in fat, no one cares about dieting. In a world that espouses a culture for indulgence people would rather die while eating.

Because the brain is unable to correlate taste with nutritional value, it is easy to manipulate or rip off the human mind into indulgence. Sensory overload whether in TV advertisements, billboards, magazine centerfolds or full page newspaper ads are preying on the human lust for food to make indulgence right and justified.

These advertising come-ons to indulge is nothing new. These are merely carry-overs of that episode in Genesis when the serpent lured Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of life. Though Moses wrote Genesis more than 4,000 years ago, media and advertising moguls are doing exactly what the serpent was doing to lure people to eat to their hearts content even as indulgence could be a deadly desire.

Excess weight and physical inactivity have been reported to account for 300,000 premature deaths each year in the US. Research conclude that people who are overweight or obese are more likely to develop heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, or osteoarthritis. But no matter how high the risk of food indulgence is, people are lied at.

No one ever says that too much of those crackling chicken skin falling on mid-air, cake falling to the ground for less than a minute, or roasted meat means carrying extra weight and extra weight means extra risk of cancer. No one ever says that “eat-all-you-can”  promotes gluttony and self-satisfaction instead of the correct and healthy diet.

People are being lied at by marketing vultures and scam artists leading people to believe it is all right to have too much burgers, fat on french fries or too much meat even when doing so could clog up heart and brain arteries. No one except perhaps weight loss companies who claim that their so-called dieting programs or products will work quick and fast. What many don’t realize is that these programs may not be suitable because  bodies don’t function the same. Metabolic differences and lifestyle factors affect weight loss making some weight reducing programs actually damaging to a person’s metabolism.

That’s not the only caveat. There seems to be a lucrative conspiracy between indulgence promoters and weight loss companies. So long as people indulge, so are they careened to visit weight loss companies that don’t necessarily discourage indulgence. There are minimal or hardly are there TV advertisements or magazine centerfolds devoted entirely to proper and effective dieting that misconceptions prevail about dieting.

Regulated Ingestion.

Dieting is not ‘die eating’ or ‘die from not eating’. Dieting is basically the practice of ingesting food in a regulated fashion. Scripture through the apostle Paul describes the human body as the temple of the Holy Ghost. No human body can ever “be a temple” if it is being corrupted with too much food or food that the body no longer needs. This temple crumbles and then collapses on its weight.

Dieting is not just for those who need to lose weight. It is for anyone or any human being who eats three times a day. Dieting is anchored on the premise that nutrients on food are provided from six broad classes including proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, dietary minerals and water. Carbohydrates provide energy. Proteins provide amino acids which are required for cell production and muscle construction. Essential fatty acids are responsible for brain and cell membrane construction. Vitamins are required for metabolic processes.

Any diet that falls short of nutritional requirements can threaten general health and physical fitness. There must be enough food in the body for the body to use energy in maintaining blood temperature and body temperature. This is accomplished with metabolism and blood circulation. Humans also use energy to keep vital organs especially the lungs, heart and brain functioning and for skeletal muscles to maintain upright posture.

Food and body functioning come in one balance for as long this is with moderation and regulation. The danger comes with indulgence. The world espouses and creates the desire for indulgence that corrupts the natural process of the human body.

What aggravates corruption on the human body is automation. Machines are substituting where man used to expend energy. People don’t walk too much because they have cars or public transport is available nor do they work too much because computer-assisted machines are doing the job. What causes the human temple to decay fast is indulgence and inactivity. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ where the things done on the body will be judged. Unless man takes control of his desires, his weight may cause his own downfall.