How Fat Does Someone Have to Be Before It Is Ok to Fat Shame Them?

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Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

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Welcome to Bible Bast, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry.

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we seek to answer the age -old question, how fat does someone have to be before it's okay to fat shame them?

Now, this is an episode, the last episode was primarily motivated by a post that I had seen on Twitter, but this episode is actually motivated by some things,

Tim, that you saw over the weekend. So why don't you tell us why we're doing this episode on fat shaming today?

Yeah, sure. Well, over the end of last week, I was doing some

Christmas shopping and trying to get a Dirty Santa gift, and so I really don't go to stores very often.

I really would prefer to avoid shopping as much as possible because I just don't really like to spend money.

I'm cheap, and so I don't really like to go to stores as far as that goes. It's just why go tempt yourself to spend a bunch of money, but I don't really do a whole lot of shopping at stores anymore.

But I found myself driving, and I was near a Target, and I just thought, well,

I'll just run in there and find a gift real quick and go to the electronics section or whatever and grab something for this party that I was going to.

I haven't been to Target in a long time, but as I'm in Target, I'm just walking through the women's clothes section on my way back to the electronics section, and posted on the wall is this picture of three huge women, just enormous women.

I mean the kind of women whose legs are as big as my body. They give thunder thighs a whole new meaning.

But they're doing model poses like you might expect at a normal store that you might go to.

They're doing the same kind of poses, but it's just huge 400 -pound women that are up there.

So I go from there and think, oh man, what are we doing with this?

Then I walk into the electronics section, and there's a picture of a smiling sodomite in a purple shirt.

Then I start noticing all the diversity pictures that are there, and it's basically just an intersectional display.

You have the Indian couple. I guess we're not quite ready for full tribal headdress

Indians yet at Target, but who knows? Pretty soon we'll get there. It's all about progress,

Tim. One step at a time, man. Right. But that was just for me.

I mean I've been watching this movement, the body positive movement and fat shaming has become along those lines one of the worst possible things that you could do.

I mean I know that growing up there was social pressure against being overweight, and now that critical theory has basically infected everything, we're at a point where being obese or being a glutton or being fat is considered a protected class, and there's this move in our society to try to normalize that.

It is a pretty strange move. I don't really keep up with pop culture or entertainment, but even someone as ignorant of pop culture and entertainment as me knows about the singer

Adele who used to be morbidly obese, and everyone praised her for being true to herself and all this kind of stuff, and she's such an inspiration and role model to all the fat women in America and everything else.

But then the point is that recently, I believe it was pretty recently, she decided that she was killing herself by being overweight, and she decided to lose some weight, and so she was universally praised as kind of an inspiration for everyone, and then when she lost weight, then all the fat people were attacking her essentially and basically saying, how could you do this to us?

How could you lose weight? I thought you cared about us.

We looked up to you, and now you're just like everyone else who is fat -shaming us.

And there's no shortage of memes on the internet that going on a diet is fat -shaming yourself, and you can look at YouTube videos of a doctor commenting on certain weight loss plans and look underneath them and see comment after comment after comment of people who are disturbed that they are being fat -shamed by any notion of trying to help people to lose weight as if that is even a goal to pursue, and so it's a problem.

I mean, when you're in a society that praises obesity and refuses to have any mechanism that would push back against that at all,

I think we need more people who are going to step into that space and speak sane words as far as that goes.

I've been into Target a few more times than you, and I had seen a lot of those ads.

When you sent me the picture of them, my first thought was, is this the first time you've been in Target in a while?

But when you sent me those pictures, I saw them the first time a year, year and a half ago whenever they started putting up all the pictures of the new fat people and gay people and whatever else.

I just hadn't really thought about it in a while. But when you sent me that picture, one of the things that I thought of,

I didn't tell you about this, but one of the things I thought of was, one of the girls was laying down on the floor doing a modeling pose, and I immediately thought,

I wonder if she needed help getting up. You're not allowed to laugh at that.

I'm going to get canceled for saying that, but that's all right. You say

I'm not allowed to joke about that. Obviously, this episode, the title of it, the joke that I made, even

I think the fact that you're pointing out, hey, there's a weird standard of beauty trying to be set through the

Target advertisements in their store. All of this to the person listening to this episode right now is going to sound incredibly offensive.

I mean, wildly offensive. You're just not allowed to say these kinds of things, especially out in public where everyone can hear you saying it and they have recorded proof of you saying it.

Explain a little bit why you think that this is so offensive, even to point out that someone is fat.

Why is this so offensive to people? Well, there's several explanations for this that I could give.

I don't even know the proper order to start, so I'm just going to say a few of them and a few explanations.

But I think growing up, I was part of a generation where there was still social stigma attached to being fat.

Fat phobia was just the standard, as it's described now, standard state of affairs.

Growing up in high school, you didn't want to be fat. I remember getting out of high school and going into my college years.

All of a sudden, it transitioned to where being skeletal thin was the thing.

And so you had actresses like Calista Flockhart, whoever that was. I can't remember. I only remember her name. Or Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.

One of them turned to extreme bulimia. And all of a sudden, being extremely bulimic became a significant thing.

Whenever you talk about the idea of fat shaming, instantaneously, the thought that comes to mind is the thought of the 95 -pound girl saying to the 100 -pound girl, hey, fatty, you need to go on a diet and quit eating so much donuts or something like that, right?

I mean that's what people think when they think about – But the problem is that they picture that scenario like anywhere between the 95 -pound woman – or 95 -pound teenage girl talking to the 100 -pound girl who's trying to live up to whatever subjective standard of beauty, quote -unquote, that males have as far as that goes.

You have that same kind of reaction though being applied all the way across the board to the 600 -pound person, right?

Who you say, hey, you can't even stand up without it being a triumphant act of bravery, right?

And so we're living in a society right now that is unable to distinguish those two things in a fundamental way.

So a part of it – that's why it's such an offensive question to ask is because instantaneously, we've collapsed anything – any weight and every weight from 95 pounds to 600 pounds, and we have the same moral reaction to any kind of pushback in a way that's kind of insane when you think about it.

So part of it is that. I think part of it is we're deeply infected by moral relativism. I remember going to Bible college.

One of the things that one of my professors says is that Christians live in an axiomatic schizophrenia is what he said, and that's just a fancy way of saying essentially we have a category for objective truth despite what the postmoderns say, which truth is relative and everything else.

So we were pushing back on, hey, it's not your truth, and this was 15 years ago, going to school or whatever it was, 20 years ago.

I can't remember now, but postmodernism is a thing. Moral relativism is a thing where there's no such thing as objective truth.

Well, the Christians were pushing back on that, but then we handed that over with – like in terms of axiomatic, our values.

We didn't believe in something like objective beauty, right? So we had embraced moral relativism as it related to the category of beauty.

So we thought beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? And we've thought that for years, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there is no objective standard of beauty.

But that's just – that's a lie. The Bible describes Rachel as being beautiful in both form and appearance and of Leah.

Leah said her eyes were weak or delicate or whatever else. So she had pretty eyes and to use a crass expression,

Rachel was the whole package, right? I know you're not allowed to use meat terms related to women without like triggering all the feminists, but I mean that's –

I'm just trying to say that there is an objective standard of beauty that exists in the world and if you – as Christians, we have to believe in that kind of thing.

But when you give everything over to relativism, then it just resolves as, hey, your preference. You like skinny people.

I like huge people, right? Who's to say who's more beautiful? It's like, well, the Bible, right?

So I mean the Bible has a lot to say about that. So I think part of it is like we have this moral indignation that's related to – what

I'm trying to say is there's this moral reaction that any instance of pushing back on gluttony at all is put as the 95 -pound girl to the 100 -pound girl.

We've embraced moral relativism essentially, which now means that like we don't have a category for objective beauty anymore.

In terms of like sociology, one of the things that's happened is critical theories infected everything and so now we have obese people as being a protected class of people.

So because they're a protected class of people, you have to basically affirm them in their identity and any pushback upon that is considered basically a civil rights kind of issue too.

So I think – then factor in the fact that I think pastors have failed to speak to the issue of gluttony for many, many years now.

It's just been kind of a ceasefire that's been put on that and then you factor into the fact that that – the fact that Americans have one of the worst diets in the history of the human race and all that combined means that we just have a problem we're not really allowed to talk about for a variety of reasons and there are other reasons too.

But that's just a few reasons why it feels like it's mortally offensive. Well, let me say this too.

I mean like because of critical theory, one of the things that happens is that like whenever you're dealing with a protected class, right?

So whether it's a sexual orientation class, quote -unquote, whether it's a minority class, quote -unquote, a perceived victim class, quote -unquote, or related to the body positivity movement, like a class of weight or size.

This is considered a protected class and the rules for all of these classes is attack on one is an attack on all.

Does that make sense? So when President Trump said that like Rosie O'Donnell was a fat idiot or something like that, right?

It's like – you're not allowed to laugh, Harrison. I can't help it.

When he said that she was a – I mean like now you're going to get thrown into the category too because you're laughing at the one.

But here's the thing. I think I was already lumped into the category. I've already lumped myself. That ship has sailed.

Oh, man. Here's the thing though. When he said that about her, what did the media say over and over and over again after that?

Like Trump attacks women, right? It's like, well, no, he doesn't attack women.

What do you mean he attacks women? What are you talking about? He just said that Rosie O'Donnell was a fat idiot, right?

Like is she a fat idiot or not, right? Like that's the point. Is she a fat idiot? Like that doesn't have to do – like all women are not

Rosie O'Donnell, right? So no one says like when – so there's an asymmetrical amount of rules here.

I mean when people – like the media says incessantly that Trump is an idiot, right? And they've even had ads about him being overweight, right?

But no one thinks, oh, that's an attack on men, right? Well, you don't have that attack because it's not a protected class and so part of like why this question is so offensive is because like obesity now is treated as a protected victim class essentially that you must universally praise.

And any criticism of the one means you criticize all. So that's why you can't even ask the question how fat does a person have to be before you fat shame.

It's all viewed under the same lens of attack on one is attack on all. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I guess just I kind of want to know your perspective on all of this since you said it started out with the 95 -pound girl telling the 100 -pound girl to lose some weight, fatty.

Are you – it seems kind of like a sudden shift in my mind.

It probably hasn't been. But in my mind, it seems like it has been a bit of a sudden shift.

Are you surprised at all at the fact that we've basically gone to the complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of how we view weight now?

I mean yes and no. I mean I'm – all of it is shocking.

Like when you think about all the intersectional classes and everything else.

I mean we're – like the level of insanity is – I must be on parody at this point. I mean like to tell a transgender person that they need to be true to themselves and basically mutilate their entire body and basically destroy their heritage or any chance that they'll ever have biological children for the rest of their life and because of some mistaken notion that they're born the wrong gender.

I mean all of that, like it's not – it's insane. I mean when you think about it and the level of insanity is just comprehensive almost at every single level.

So there's a sense in which it's – like people have to say, how stupid can we possibly get, right?

Like how stupid can we possibly – I mean like with every new revelation in the news cycle, it's just like we're just reaching new levels of stupidity and it's just like breathtaking how dumb us supposedly enlightened people can possibly be at this point.

So there's a sense in which it's shocking but then there's another sense in which I think once – you can kind of see the writing on the wall for a long time now with the body -positive stuff.

I mean it's an insane conclusion. Like there's obviously health – like so –

I mean there's settled actual good science to talk about like all the preventable illnesses that can be caused by keeping yourself in reasonable proportion and everything else.

I mean it's just like there's so many preventable diseases like heart disease and certain forms of cancer and everything else that just are largely affected by diet and just – you can see physically the – all the problems that –

I mean imagine the 400 -pound person climbing the stairs and all out of breath and barely make it up and all the knee pain problems and the back problems and all the erectile dysfunction.

Everything that comes from – I mean there's so many problems that come from being obese to the point where why would you want to praise that as a society, as a virtue?

Like it seems insane but at the same time I think it is the kind of thing that once you see how the game works and your eyes are open, that once something is starting to be considered a protected class, you can extrapolate out if you have some sort of forethought and you're looking and you're paying attention.

You can see where the trajectory is going and so like as soon as like for instance gay became the new black, right?

You saw how that script worked itself out and then when you see a similar thing is happening with being obese or being able -bodied, right?

You got to check your able -bodied privilege. We know how this goes, right? You can see the writing on the wall.

You start trying to – what you do is you end up praising a vice as a virtue and demanding that everyone else praise it and all the rules, predictable rules apply.

Does that make sense? So it's shocking in the level of idiocy that is there but then it's like, yeah, we've seen this playbook before.

Yeah, that makes sense. It feels like Romans 1 in the worst way possible.

Basically. Well, that's what Romans 1 says. Hey, not only did they commit these things but they give hearty approval of those who do so as well and that's what's being demanded is that you praise these vices at every point.

Right. In an unthinking way. Right. So you're saying – using terms like vices, it seems like you're indicating, hey, these things are really, really bad.

So when it comes to scripture, is it safe to assume that being fat is sinful or is it just unwise like for your health?

What exactly does scripture tell us about being fat? Is there like a thou shalt not be fat somewhere that we can go to real quick?

Goodness. So this is – I think it's a hard question to answer like in terms of in a simplistic way and because it's a hard question to answer,

I think essentially what's happened is that there's been a lot more latitude given to this kind of topic than should be given as far as that goes.

But no pun intended. But anyways, no,

I think – so let me see if I can try to – there doesn't seem to be in the

Bible a – there's obviously not a specific thou shalt not be fat kind of thing and so there's that.

Now at the same time, there's a lot of passages in the Bible which condemn gluttony.

So Deuteronomy 21 .20 talks about what to do if you have a stubborn and rebellious son and part of the – there's an instruction there that's offensive at a different level because – maybe we could do a podcast on that at some point.

But basically the instruction under the law is if you have a stubborn and rebellious son, you take him out to the elders of the city gate and you stone him.

But then it says he will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard.

So it's like that seemed to be significant moral issues. You read through Proverbs.

There are several verses that are related to the idea of gluttons. So be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat.

I guess we need to leave America, right? So that's in the language of wisdom. Proverbs 23 .21,

for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty and slumber clothe them. Proverbs 28 .7,

be careful who your friends are. The one who keeps – essentially it's what it's saying. The one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father, right?

So you read through the Bible. You have this idea of gluttony being a significant moral issue.

It's a matter of wisdom at certain points. But then it's – you might want to not have friends who are gluttons, not be a companion of gluttons or you're going to bring shame.

So it is something that should be shameful, right? Jesus, he was accused of being a companion of – or he's accused of being a glutton and a drunkard, right?

And then Titus 1 .2 of the Cretans, characteristics of the Cretans, the prophets of our own said

Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. I mean this is a moral category and so I think it's easy to attach yourself to this idea of being a glutton and being someone who is intemperate with his eating of food.

But I think what the issue with the glutton is, is like a glutton is a person essentially who doesn't have self -control as it relates to eating, right?

Now, what makes that complicated is that there are obviously I think people with stronger metabolisms in the world than others.

So I had a friend who basically he's in his mid -30s and the guy could eat whatever he wanted to eat and he could never gain his weight because he had some sort of medical condition.

It's like, well, that's a problem I wish I had as far as that goes. But I mean I think there's some sort of difficulty here as it relates to defining.

I wouldn't want to say that it's a sin to necessarily be fat depending on how you define it. But gluttony is a real moral issue and I think

I could just speak to my own kind of experience here and try to explain why it's a little bit complicated.

Growing up, I was in high school. I was an athlete. I played basketball eight hours a day. In high school,

I weighed 135 pounds and towards the beginning of high school and basically by the end of high school,

I was about 155 max. But that was 1 % body fat, the 3 % body fat range.

And there's nothing I could do to gain weight. I mean my parents had five kids and I basically spent my whole childhood hungry, right?

They couldn't feed me fast enough, right? And so I mean it is what it is.

I mean I learned to eat like an athlete, right? And so then going into college, it was funny.

I mean it's just like all of a sudden I transitioned into more of a steady sedentary lifestyle and I never really learned –

I didn't have to diet or really. I mean I spent all day long exercising anyways. I could eat as much as I wanted and then all of a sudden in the college, it's like I have all the same habits.

I go to Taco Bell three times a day. Now that I have money, right? Three times a day?

Were you eating breakfast at Taco Bell too? And then all of a sudden

I blow up, right? And it's just like, what in the world? But then it's funny because it really did take me – it took me a good number of years to figure out what was going on and I would say that in a simplistic way, just to be a little bit autobiographical here as it relates to this,

I never learned how to eat healthy, right? And my understanding of like what appropriate size portions were was significantly flawed and I really didn't understand anything about nutrition or how any of that worked.

And so part of it was it's like, okay, well, I'm going to eat less and maybe that will help out a little bit and drink diet drinks and do all the things.

But then the problem was it's just like you're still living in America eating one of the worst diets in the history of the world, right?

And so part of – I would somewhat argue one of the best diets in the world. In terms of taste?

In taste. Okay. Maybe not so much in health.

Well, I think for me, I gained a bunch of weight in my early college years and I mean it was a source of like trouble for me and I didn't really know what to do to get it off because no matter what

I did, I couldn't be like I was in high school. The problem was

I chalked it all up to, wow, I have a different metabolism than everyone else or something like that, right? Or maybe there are some lucky people out there who just can be thin, but I'm not one of them.

But the problem is it's just like the more you – it took me to my early 30s to figure out what skinny people were actually doing in order to maintain their skinniness, right?

And one of the things that they don't do is drink a two -liter of Mountain Dew a day or something like that, right?

I mean there's so much ridiculous amount of sugar in that. If you want to be fat, drink like regular soda.

Just look on the back of a 20 -ounce and there's like what?

Like 70 grams of sugar or something? It's bad. It's awful. I mean if you want to be fat, just drink it.

But I mean the thing is you cannot be a glutton. Here's the thing. You could be fat, like fatter than you should be.

You could be disproportionate, right, objectively and eat once a day, pretty modest diet or something like that in terms of quantity.

But you're just drinking a bunch of sugar drinks all day long, right? And so I don't know that there's some kind of – here's why it's complicated.

I don't know that there's some kind of moral condemnation against that kind of person who's just ignorant about how …

Nutrition. Yeah. I mean to – and like that kind of person, they may not be a glutton.

They may have self -control. They just may be eating and all the wrong stuff and don't understand.

They don't have a plan to get there. And so I don't think that there's like some sort of simplistic answer to this like at all points.

I mean again, I don't know much about celebrities. But I do know that if Kim Kardashian wants to lose weight,

I've learned somehow over the course of my life that what she does is she eats a chicken salad every meal with no dressing on it and drinks water, right?

Yeah. And so hey – no, but I'm just trying to say that that's like – the people who are actually – look the way that they look, it's not like because they have some sort of miraculous metabolism in the main.

It's because they're making choices that – to eat different things than – like they're not going to KFC and having a plateful of macaroni and cheese and a plateful of potato wedges and a plateful of mashed potatoes with their fried chicken fingers.

With their 44 -ounce Pepsi and all the ranch dressing and everything else.

They're making the kind of choices to maintain their appearance that you don't want to make. So I would say the simple answer to the question is it's just – it's complicated.

But I mean obviously at some point, somewhere along the line when you're at 400 pounds, let's just all acknowledge that if you're 400 pounds, you've – whatever you're doing, you've crossed the line, right?

And you're such a poor steward of your body now that like you functionally probably aren't able to really fulfill the responsibilities

God has given you in life. Be a good friend, good husband, good wife, good father, good mother.

If you can't even get up off the couch without being out of breath, something has gone awry at that point to where – probably a lot of it is related to what you're eating and probably a lot of it is related to how much you're moving too.

So does that make sense? So I don't know that there's a simplistic kind of calculus. But I would say that most people should probably lose a little weight.

So I know that … In order to be faithful, OK? OK. So in order to be faithful – when you say in order to be faithful, in order to be faithful to just all of the various responsibilities that have been given to man, is that what you mean?

Yeah, sure. So I mean like part of the issue is gluttony and that – like I think you can eat a horrible diet and be self -controlled and not be the kind of person who's hiding in your closet eating like a box of chips ahoy or something, right?

Or have your food stashes all over the house. I think you could be the kind of person just eating a horrible diet that isn't in very good proportion and still be self -controlled.

And it's just like how you may want to think about like being a little bit better steward of your body for the sake of wisdom.

But then there's a verse in Hebrews that is I think relevant to this. And Hebrews 12, 1, it says, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, it says.

Notice what I did there? Every weight. Let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Now that weight there, let me suggest in the nicest possible way that that could be literal weight, right?

So like the weight is different from the sin category. So you have sins that are clearly sin, but like there are things that slow you down in the race, right?

And part of that just could be like literal weight, right? I mean it could slow you down in the race.

It could make it to where like, hey, you know what? It's harder to play with my kids because I'm 70 pounds overweight, right?

You know what? It's harder to enjoy my wife being intimate with my wife because I'm suffocating to death trying to –

I mean look. It's harder to let my husband enjoy me, right? Physically because I detest the way

I look because I refuse to make good choices or something like that. When your weight becomes an issue that's like, hey,

I'm having all these heart problems because I'm carrying around so much extra weight.

I'm having trouble walking upstairs without getting winded. I'm having trouble standing up off a couch.

I don't want to ever play with my kids because it's too much work. I mean like you might be amazed at how much energy you actually have.

I mean I can't tell you how many times I've seen adults look at kids and like, oh, I wish I had such energy. It's like, you know what?

You may have a lot of that if you would lose 60, 70 pounds, right? You may be surprised at how much energy you actually have and it's no shock.

You don't know why you're so tired and lethargic and sluggish all the time. It might just because you have some weights that you need to lay aside for the sake of being faithful.

Yeah, maybe drink some more water. Right, right, right. Well, hey, I mean that's a lot of weight loss.

Honestly, it's just drinking water. Yeah, I've noticed that a lot. I used to drink a lot of soda and I still have periods where I will for like a week or so.

I'll drink like a lot of soda but then I have tried to be a lot more conscientious about drinking water.

I have like this big water bottle that I try and drink at least one but hopefully more than one of it throughout the day.

And number one, I normally just feel a lot better. Like my head doesn't hurt as much because I'm not so dependent on the caffeine that I'm getting from all those drinks.

But then two, I'm just not drinking, you know, 70 grams of sugar however much it is per can of soda with each drink.

I'm just, you know, I'm getting water instead and so I normally feel a lot better. I also, when you're talking about all the food stuff,

I immediately thought of my favorite comedy movie of all time, Dodgeball.

When you have Ben Stiller's character who is the, is it

Ben Stiller? I think it's Ben Stiller. I forget now because I haven't seen it in so long.

But he's like the fit guy who owns the really awesome gym that's going to buy out the terrible gym from the main characters and then he loses all his stuff and he loses his gym and so he's just like stuck at home eating fast food and stuff all the time and like blows up to be like 600 pounds or whatever.

And I was thinking about that and I was like, man, you're just not allowed to make movies like that anymore. They don't make them as good as they used to,

I guess. The Bible talks about the sluggard is so lazy that he refuses to eat or he's unable to lift his fingers from the bowl again.

And so it's like you picture the big 600 -pound person with the Cheeto -stained fingers who wants to eat another but doesn't have the energy to do it.

That's such a gross picture. We're not allowed to laugh at that. You're just not allowed to make movies like that anymore.

That's funny. Earlier in your answer, you talked about churches really haven't talked about gluttony very much.

And in my own personal life, I don't know that I can think of a single time that I've ever heard anyone talk about gluttony in any kind of way, really.

Not even just kind of off -topic comment made during a sermon.

I really haven't heard much about it at all. But then we all realize it's a sin, like we said earlier.

Gluttony is. But then, obviously, we live in a society that is drastically mishandling their weight.

And even taking it so far as to having,

I think, heart -related issues are the number one cause of death in our country.

And I think a large part of that is because of our diets and our weight in general as a society.

So it seems like one of those issues where if you're a Christian looking at things and you can see that this issue is actually not only a spiritual life or death situation, but it's actually literally a physical life or death situation for a lot of people where you're drastically shortening your lifespan.

So why is it that churches aren't really talking about this at all? Gluttony. Yeah.

Well, I mean I think related to the factors mentioned before.

I mean it's obviously a problem. So just some statistics here. Obesity is increasing.

So from 1999 to 2017, essentially, obesity prevalence increased from about 30 % to about 42 % in the

United States. And then there's all the problems that are associated with it. So we're getting fatter as a country.

That's part of the problem. And then you can have like a little kid's movie like Wall -E that basically is projecting this out in the future where in the future all human beings will be 600 pounds on their motor.

600 pounds is the new standard. Yeah. So we're getting fatter as a society. I mean you can just look at the old – think about this.

You go to McDonald's and like that single cheeseburger meal, like a single cheeseburger with like a small fry.

That used to be like a meal that would satisfy a normal adult in like the 50s or something like that.

Can you imagine eating that and feeling full? No. Not at all.

What's happening is like the meals are getting bigger and bigger and our expectations about what's normal are getting bigger.

So part of it is just because gluttony is an issue of self -control. There are plenty of people who are just eating this awful

American diet and they're not really sneaking cookies.

They're not just like sitting on the couch, going through a bag of Doritos or something like that, right?

But then they can't control their weight and they don't know why. So I think part of that is just like led people to just –

I don't think we understand nutritionally enough. Part of the thing is just to give some understanding is –

I mean you have like fad diet after fad diet and conflicting information.

I mean like when I was growing up, everything was the low -fat stuff and so you have to – if you want to lose weight, you eat all the low -fat stuff.

And then now it's like, well, you need high -fat. And so what is it? Is it low -fat or is it high -fat?

I think that our – like there are a thousand nutritional theories out there and no one knows what the right way is.

I mean I remember when – what's that guy from Subway? Do you remember that guy?

Oh, Jared something. Jared. I think he got into some trouble later on.

Yeah. I don't think he's with Subway anymore. But I mean I remember

I eat a six -inch Subway a day in order to lose weight. It's like now it's like bread, whatever.

So I think there's a lot of conflicting stuff and people are confused and the diet is horrible and it's increasing and we're all addicted to carbs and sugar and everything else.

So I think part of it is just like there are factors that – there's just a lot of ignorance and just way too much information.

We don't know how to sort through it all and we end up fatter and everyone is just like, well, lay off.

So part of it is that. Part of it is now though. So I think there's been that kind of thing, just the ignorance about it in general.

And then we've been affected by relativism too as it relates to – like we don't believe in objective beauty anymore in a way that is irrational.

So there's that. But then now

I think there's also social pressure related to some of those things as well like the body positive movement.

So I think we've just kind of – we've laid off of this for a long time now and there's been a lot of churches who are – like here's the thing.

I mean like if you want to be more cynical about it, there's so many churches. I mean look, a lot of the big givers typically are heavy people.

So like you don't want to go after – like as America is getting fatter and fatter and fatter, you don't want to go after your donors, man.

So it's kind of been put in this respectable sense. Don't bite the hand that feeds. Yeah, literally.

So I think that there's a lot of things like that that are factoring into it. But the point is that, yeah, hey, we – now we – we're not allowed to talk about it.

Now, OK. When it comes to the actual question that we were asking at the beginning of this episode, could you just explain to us a little bit of – or maybe provide a definition even for fat shaming, what we're meaning when we're talking about fat shaming itself?

Yeah, I mean so as I said, I mean right now when you think of what fat shaming is, is fat shaming is basically just any attempt that a person might have to make a person feel bad for their weight.

So, I mean at this point, fat shaming is like this ever amorphous concept that is constantly expanding to basically be any attempt a person has to criticize a person for their weight or get them to change, no matter how big or unhealthy they actually are.

I mean I think in like a negative sense, it would be like any refusal to positively praise people for actually being fat as well.

So basically it's any moral attempt to push back at a person for being overweight, if that makes sense.

So, I mean when it comes to … … the act or practice of subjecting someone perceived as fat.

Perceived as fat, not just actually. Notice how you've slipped in the moral relativism there, right?

The act or practice of subjecting someone perceived as fat or overweight, as if it's just like there's no objective category for being fat or overweight.

There's no scientific way to determine if someone is fat or not. Yeah, so we don't even –

You monster. But the act or practice of subjecting someone perceived as fat or overweight is as to criticism or mockery.

So you can't even criticize them at all, right? That's what I mean. It's just like – basically it's just there's a – like any attempt at moral reform for a gluttonous person or an overweight person or to say, hey, you need to make some lifestyle changes.

So any criticism at all, any attempt to say, hey, you need to change is viewed as fat shaming up until mockery.

And so I mean I think that there's obviously something morally wrong with the 95 -pound girl looking at the 100 -pound girl and saying, hey, fatty, why don't you quit eating so much

French fries or something, right? Like you're so repulsive.

Like I can see a slight muffin top poking out over your jeans, you disgusting pig.

There's something wrong with that kind of thing to where – like that's not helpful. That's not edifying.

That's – like it doesn't pass the biblical test of what it means to love someone and everything else.

But like you have to understand that there's a vast difference between that and refusing to buy the second pizza for the 600 -pound person who's laying in the bed all day long.

There has to be some sort of moral difference there between the two and so now it's just – there's a universal ceasefire that's declared on this topic to where you can't say the obvious.

And everything is – from the 95 -pound to the 600 -pound thing is all viewed as the exact same moral action, which is just insane.

So a lot of people when they hear that – this is a weird thing that you pointed out earlier.

But when a lot of people hear these types of phrases, when they hear things like fat shaming, immediately what your mind does is it jumps to the worst possible version of what that could be and then applies it to every situation in which someone uses the term fat shaming, whether or not that's what actually happened, right?

And what I mean is you think of the – when you hear the term fat shaming, you think of the person who's going out and looking at the fat target model and saying, hey, you big giant heifer, quit stuffing your face so much or whatever.

Basically just taking it to an area that's no longer simply confronting what's actually going on in that person's life but actually just making fun of them for no other purpose than just to make fun of them.

That's what people immediately jump to when they hear that term fat shaming. But then most of the time, honestly, that's not even happening.

I go online all the time and I see posts on different social media platforms where a person will have their little video they made or before and after pictures that they've taken where they have like a year -long journey or a five -year -long journey of they started out really overweight, like 300 pounds, and then they disciplined themselves.

They changed their diet. They start going to the gym regularly. And then by the end of it, they look like a totally different person most of the time.

And a lot of times, even if they don't look crazy different, they still look way healthier and they tell people that their lives are definitely better now that they've lost weight.

And a lot of times, you have people in the comments coming in and saying, hey, you can't fat shame people like this.

And it's like, obviously, we're taking one term and we're applying it to two completely different things.

So probably when most people hear the title of this episode, they immediately think of the person going out and hurling insults at someone just for the sake of hurling insults at someone and not thinking, hey, maybe we should just confront these people who are essentially killing themselves a lot of times.

Well, yeah. So keep on going. The question is why is that happening or is it an observation?

Well, that's more just an observation that was going to lead me essentially to saying that should be our response is the latter, confronting people for the sake of their own well -being spiritually and physically.

So how exactly should Christians respond to friends that are fat?

Is there a moral obligation to confront them? I know we're saying, hey, it's kind of hard to qualify as this sinful.

Maybe once you get to a certain weight, yeah, there's a threshold where it's like, all right, now it is officially sin.

But it seems like it's a little more complicated than that. But then we're kind of being pressured by society because of the way the terms are being used to never say anything about it.

So what exactly are Christians supposed to do? Are they supposed to not really say much about it and just hope that people learn or should they confront their overweight friends?

What are we supposed to do with that? Well, I think you need to reject the moral calculus that basically equivocates and compares two vastly different things and collapses them all under the same kind of terminology.

And we're doing this at every level also. So the issue is once you label something a protected class, then that's the move that's being run across the board, right?

So if you think about the race discussion, that's what's happening at the race discussion. Like if you were to say, hey, just look at rap videos and you see the debauchery and the degenerate kind of behavior that's happening there and you say, hey, this is a destructive culture, right?

Well, you can't say that because being black is considered to be a protected class.

And so an attack on one is an attack on them all, right? And so it's like, but no, it's like, hey, but isn't ghetto culture destructive?

And like, isn't it bad to like have your B words and your hoes, you know, that you put on these rap videos and, you know, they're dressed like skanks and hookers and, you know, doing the things that they're doing and referring to them that way.

And like, isn't this like you're dressing like criminals and acting like, like, isn't this like bad?

Like, isn't this negative? Isn't this affecting people in real time? But it's like you have to universally praise it because it's a protected class, right?

And so the same thing is happening with – so that move was done with the race discussion, but then it's also being done with the homosexual or the sodomite discussion too to where it's a protected class.

And like any pushback against sodomy is now like basically the moral equivalent of like basically saying that you want to hang a sodomite or something, right?

And it's just like, well – and now the same thing is happening with the fat shaming thing. It's just like once we put it into the protected class, then criticism of one is criticism of all and there's no pushback allowed.

So I think you have to reject that. You have to say, hey, this is not logical and this is not rational and that like there are vast differences between the 95 -pound girl being picked on by the popular girl at school and telling the 600 -pound person, hey,

I'm not going to buy you another pizza. Sorry, go get your own pizza. So yes,

I mean – and I think with that pushback, I think because it's hard to know –

I don't think you want to adopt some sort of – because there's some subjectivity involved in some manner of like you're reading a person's behavior and it's subjectively determined.

Meaning like, hey, I don't see the person sneaking cookies all the time. I don't see them like having like stashes of snacks all over the place that they're trying to eat when no one is looking and that kind of weirdness.

They're just eating normal meals and maybe they have an unhealthy diet and it's just like they're not – maybe they're eating a little more than what

I think is reasonable for them, but I'm not the ultimate judge of what self -control is. I do think there's a lot of latitude that people have and I do think – yeah, it's not like – well, like if you're the 90 -pound person, your standard of what morbid obesity is is like a 10 -pound variant and if you're at 250 or whatever, your standard of morbid obesity is 100 pounds more than you or something.

It's like wherever you happen to be at the moment, which is reasonable. I don't think you want to kind of be the police as far as that goes to where you are the one who subjectively determines like what is an appropriate level of disproportionate body or something like that.

So I don't want to say that, but I remember Simpson Ferguson once he was given a discussion on this and he was given practical wisdom at this point and he was saying,

I try to keep myself in reasonable proportion, right? And so I drink the milk with the blue cap on it and the one with the red cap or whatever, but that was his plan.

But I think that kind of insight to say, hey, God did make us in his image and I don't know that we're reflecting his image very well if we're just grossly out of proportion, right?

So maybe we should try to keep ourself in reasonable proportion and have a lot of latitude as far as what that looks like.

But I think where the rubber meets the road is if your loved one is just unable to perform the task that God has given them to perform because of their weight.

I think at that point there is a clear moral kind of imperative to say you need to do better, you know?

Meaning like, hey, when we got married, you looked a certain way and then after we got married, you gained 150 pounds and now you never want me to touch you again or look at you again or you're grossed out by the thought of intimacy or whatever.

Or you're winded at the thought of trying to play with your kids. You're constantly telling your kids to go away.

Or you don't want to go to church because you might have to climb those stairs and it's just too much for you.

It's going to hurt your knee. Or you're not able to clean the house because your back hurts so much because you have all this extra weight on you.

I think when it becomes like when your health is a weight in the

Hebrews 12 sense that's keeping you from faithfulness, I think at that point that's a good way to step into those kind of relationships and say, hey, look, there's some subjectivity here.

But you're unable to do the things God calls you to do because of your body – because of how you're taking care of yourself.

At this point, it becomes a moral imperative for you to resolve the issue. Does that make sense?

I would latch onto that as a good way to – an anchor in the midst of a foggy subject.

Yeah. So I guess essentially what you're saying is when it comes to how fat does someone have to be before it's

OK to fat shame them. Essentially when they're at the point that they can't really faithfully perform the responsibilities that they've been entrusted with, right?

Is that the answer? I think that's a safe answer. That's not the question I ended up asking with this last one.

But you skillfully answered it anyway. I think that's the safest way to address the subject is to say there's that.

I mean I don't know that there's – I think in practical terms, people would be forgiven to think, oh, yeah, you basically – whatever standard of weight you're at is acceptable and everything else.

Then anyone who is heavier than you, you're going to pick on or something like that. I would say, well, there may be some like psychological tendencies in that way.

But I do think if you're full of joy and peace and long -suffering and gentleness and meekness and kindness and faithfulness and self -control,

I would say there's probably a lot of freedom as far as that goes. There's obviously more important things than peak physical health, right?

It's a problem. I mean it's just like when people hear you say, hey, maybe you should try to – like I mean there's a dumb move that happens where it's like, hey, you need to take your health more seriously.

They instantaneously look at you and say, hey, well, I'm sorry. I'm never going to be that fitness model on Instagram or whatever with the six -pack abs and I'm sorry

I'm not good enough for you. It's just like, hey, come on. Why are we going there?

We're just – I think you don't have to go there with it. No one has to go there.

It's just – but any pushback is taken like that. You want me to be those people in the magazine.

It's like, no, I think you're unable to do the things that God has called you to do and you have to be faithful, right?

So what is that going to look like? Right. I do think it might mean like the

Proverbs 31 woman, for instance, clothes herself with strength, right? But that doesn't mean like she's an

Olympic athlete. It means that she – but it also means she's not the sluggard, right?

The same thing is true of men. I think if you can be faithful to the things

God has called you to and do well at them and not just barely get by, that kind of determines how serious you should take this and so on.

Right. So the last two questions I'll ask you, the first one is obviously the pushback – and I know we kind of talked about – we've really kind of already answered this, but it might be helpful to have kind of a concise answer to it as well.

We've answered it all throughout the episode, but then it might be nice to have a concise kind of answer to this too in the episode.

But a lot of people, the critique they're going to have is, hey, this isn't a very loving thing to do, right?

To quote -unquote fat shame people. This isn't very loving. You're not being gentle. You're not being kind.

You're not being meek. So what would your response be to the person that has that kind of pushback when it comes to the assertion that we actually should confront people when their weight is becoming such an issue that they can't perform their normal duties?

And that we also even need to be talking about, hey, look, gluttony is a real sin that probably like 90 % of our society, if not more, 90 % of our society is committing right now.

So what would your response be to that type of pushback? Sure.

I mean, I think just do argument ad absurdum or whatever.

Argue from the extreme. I mean, I think everyone knows with the 600 -pound person that a person doesn't get 600 pounds laying in a bed unable to stand without people in their life who are enabling them, right?

So like in order to maintain that level of weight, you have to eat like two pizzas a day or more.

And someone is buying those pizzas for that person. Like just watch my 600 -pound life and you'll see, right?

There's always the enabler there. And that may – our society's definition of love is to basically give people whatever they want, right?

That's the definition of love. You give them whatever they want. And what you have to do is give them what's called universal positive regard.

So basically you have to uncritically praise everything that they do and choose as their own identity and everything else.

And so like there's – and that's what people want. Universal positive regard. They just want – tell me

I'm special. Tell me I'm wonderful. Tell me I'm perfect. Tell me I'm pretty just the way I am, right? And that's why

Adele is an inspiration to all the young fat singers and young fat girls who were made fun of in high school and all that.

It's because they just want to be universally praised for who they are, right? And empowered to be their true and authentic self.

And the problem is it's just – it's a lie from the pit of hell. It's destructive. It's harmful to people. So that person who's laying there,

I mean they're – if you understand what they're doing to their body, they're understanding what they're – even if they lose weight, they're going to have all these like significant sheets of fat that are hanging off of their bones.

Like they're permanently scarring themselves and mutilating themselves for the rest of their life by the choices that they're making.

And they're dramatically cutting down their lifespan and they're dramatically harming themselves and harming everyone around them.

I mean like what kind of mom is it that's just laying in a bed 600 pounds, right? What kind of quality of life is that?

Like that's an extremely self -centered person. That's a slugger who can't even bring her hand up from the bowl or his hand up from the bowl.

I mean like you have like the worst quality of life imaginable. You can't even enjoy the creation that God has given you.

In the way that you should, right? And you have all these problems. You're probably on like a list of medication just to keep yourself going at that point, right?

And so like that's not love. Like it's not love just to hand a drug addict drugs, right?

It's not. Like if you're that person who thinks, hey, the loving thing is to give the heroin addict their next fix.

I mean you're killing them. You're an agent of destruction in their life. And true love is going to be to like say, hey, you know what?

I'm not doing it. And you know what? Like there's no one who's going to be 600 pounds without some help.

You know what I'm saying? And if everyone would quit helping them, they would at least get down to four, you know?

Because they'd have to get their own stuff, you know? So like that's the point. There's built -in exercise at that point.

Right, yeah. I mean maybe they have a phone. I mean but look, even if they have a phone, they're ordering their own pizza.

All you have to do is take their phone from them. What are they going to do? They're not going to get up and get it until they lose about 100 pounds or 200 pounds.

So I mean like that's what – and that's like what it means. And that's the problem is that we've lost like what it means to actually love people.

It's not just affirm them as beautiful and wonderful just the way they are. It is to be people who are actually iron sharpens iron in their life and actually helping them like to see the things that are so obvious to everyone around them.

It's like, hey, this is a huge thing for you, body image. And part of it is because you're making a lot of bad choices and you need to wake up.

Your life could be 100 times better if you would repent. And I'm not going to be a person in your life giving you the kisses of an enemy, but I'll give you the wounds of a friend.

Right, right. So my last question isn't necessarily related directly to weight but more focused on the gluttony aspect of everything.

And it's simply what would you – there might be people listening who are thinking to themselves, hey, maybe

I'm the person who's actually gluttonous.

Maybe I'm the person who's eating way more than I'm supposed to be eating and I'm actually dishonoring the

Lord with my diet and with my self -control when it comes to what

I eat. And so what would you tell that person in terms of, number one, how do you even figure out if you're the person who's gluttonous?

It's hard to imagine there's like a specific line where it's like, hey, if you eat more than X amount of McDoubles from McDonald's, then you're gluttonous at that point.

So how do you determine whether or not you are the gluttonous person?

And then what would you say to encourage that person in terms of fighting that sin?

I think no one wants to – very few people want to admit that they're the gluttonous person. And so it's all like –

I'm just big boned. Just big boned, that kind of thing.

And most people have that. But then those kind of people I would say in almost every single case – in the vast majority of cases, like they just – their perception of what is normal is skewed and they don't realize it.

So in terms of like no one's just going to say, hey – I think a lot of people in that kind of category are basically just going to say, hey, look,

I'm not sneaking the cookies and I'm not doing all that kind of stuff.

I don't have my food stashes all over the place. I'm not eating and throwing it up and eating some more and binging.

I'm not doing that. But I just get bigger and I don't – whatever. I would think that like that kind of person, if they would listen to what

I'm saying, it would benefit them. They would – like what they should do is they should get a skinny person in their life that says, hey,

I would like to look like this person, right? And then go talk to that person and say, hey, you know what?

As an experiment, I'm going to eat what you eat. And only what you eat, right?

I want to eat what you eat and only what you eat. And so I want you to tell me what you eat and I'm going to do it, whatever you eat.

Will you be like my accountability partner? Because I think that this is just all about my genetics and like I can't help it and everything else.

But I want to test that theory out and I want to eat the proportions that you eat and the exact things that you're eating.

And so will you take me under your wing and just – like let's just test this theory out and see, right?

Let's see if this is like you look the way you look because of lifestyle choices that you're making that I'm unwilling to make.

Or let's see if it's because of genetics. And I would think that in the vast majority of cases, what that person would find is that they look the way they look and they feel the way they feel because they're making different choices.

Does that make sense? And so I think like obviously this person is not starving to death dead that you wish you could look like or something.

Let me be careful there. I'm not trying to say that like the goal of losing weight is just to get to some – ultimately mainly about getting to some appearance that you find desirable or something else.

I'm just trying to say if you think it's all about – like if – no one is going to say, hey, maybe

I'm gluttonous, right? Yeah. Okay. But like what I would just say is, okay, to that person who thinks, okay, it's all about my genetics.

Why don't you test it out and see? And you might find that that person that you think has better genetics than you, they drink water all day long, right?

They don't drink all the Mountain Dew 20 ounces or two liters or whatever. And you might find that if you would modify your diet to theirs that you would see some pretty dramatic changes.

They may have learned something along the way that you haven't. And so does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's pretty helpful. That's not all that there is to weight loss. That's not all there is to this subject.

I'm just – to that kind of person, I'm trying to answer what would be some practical thing you might say to that kind of person.

Who – to wake them up a little bit and realize that we're – maybe this isn't what I think it is.

But I don't know. Do you have a follow -up or a pushback on that? No.

No, I think – I mean obviously there's probably a lot more that could be said overall in terms of that kind of person and practical advice.

But I think that's at least like a good starting place for someone. Well, let me add this real quick.

I mean I just – I don't think we – like Bible says that body exercise is of little profit.

That doesn't mean no profit. It means of little profit. And I think the goal is not to get to some – the goal of this kind of thing is not to like have some sort of standard in your mind of what is perfection and hold everyone to it and then to mention of any variance from that kind of thing.

The point though is just to say that, hey, we're in a society that now is praising vices and we need to like wake up a little bit.

And the goal is to be faithful. Like we want to be faithful to the things God has called us to be. And if we just uncritically – here's the point.

If you uncritically just praise like behavior that is destructive, like you're going to get destruction.

You're not going to get like ability to honor God and that's the impulse behind it. It's not just to – it's to mock fat people.

It is to say that, hey, like we've lost our way and we need to wake up. Yeah, yeah. I agree.

OK. Well, I think that's a good place to stop on this discussion. So thank you,

Tim, for all of your helpful answers. This has been another episode of Bible Bash.

We hope you've been encouraged and blessed through our discussion. Now go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.