Health of Mind, Body, and Spirit

I think I have followed a cultural trend as a baby-boomer. I have had a long concern for my physical health. I liked sports in my youth, more playing than watching. When I was around 18, just starting college, I started running as a physical discipline. My weight, like most people, has seen its climb and its decline. I will eat well for a while, and then, not so much. Eventually, I got some weights and a Total Gym. Now, I am even part of Anytime Fitness to keep fit during the winter. Many in our culture seem quite interested in our physical health. Churches will seek some common ground here through their sports ministries.

In the process, I have also taken my share of diet type pills.

Witness the pharmaceutical culture we live in. We cannot turn on the TV without discovering that there is a new syndrome or disease or ache or ailment out there to avoid or be aware.

You are watching television and you see all these ads featuring happy and attractive people walking in the woods, mountain biking, sitting in bathtubs and throwing footballs through tires because they took a pill that made it all possible. Do you want to lose weight, get more sleep, get stronger, or deal with an embarrassing social disease? Just ask your doctor, pop the pill, and relax. Call it “better living through chemistry.”

It is certainly true that many of these advances in medical science have made a difference in the quality of life for people. Pills that treat and prevent disease are a godsend, like the drug varenicline that doctors have used to help patients curb their smoking addictions. Recent evidence has shown that it may also help curb other addictions as well.

Nevertheless, as good as these pills are, they are not strong enough to do the job alone. Taking cholesterol medication while continuing to eat bacon fried in lard, for example, probably negates any good benefit the drug offers. One pill just won’t do it.

However, that does not stop people from relying on them. Of all the pharmaceutical ads popping up everywhere, the ones targeting America’s rapidly expanding waistline seem to get the most response. After all, if you could really lose 10 pounds while still sitting on the couch eating cheese puffs, would you not want to make that happen? Diet pills have been around for decades featuring before-and-after photos of folks who have gone from flab to fab without diet or exercise. Sales of these pills have swelled in the last few years along with the bellies of consumers. Every year brings new diets or a new remedy that claims we can have it all and still look good, too.

One of the bigger pharmaceutical splashes this past summer was the advent of a new diet pill called “Alli” (pronounced like “ally”), which is the first over-the-counter weight-loss pill to have full FDA approval. Alli claims to be an anti-obesity pill that “eats fat” by absorbing up to a quarter of the fat the user eats. Americans, looking for the ultimate solution to a lifetime of overeating, have been buying up this new wonder pill despite its relatively high cost of about $50 for a 20-day supply. As Alli’s Web site says, this price is “roughly what one might expect to pay for a bag of chips and a can of soda every day — the equivalent of an afternoon snack.”

In other words, put down the chips and you can afford to pop the pill.

Nevertheless, that raises an interesting question. If I have the willpower to put down the chips in the first place, do I really need the pill? Read the fine print and it becomes clear that Alli only works to chew up fat you already have. If you continue to honk down extra value meals every day, Alli will not work for you. In fact, a nasty side effect called the “Alli oops” may kick in. “It forces you to eat a lower-fat diet — if you do not, you are violently penalized for not doing so,” says David Sarwer, the director of clinical services at the Center for Weight Loss and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “When they eat a little too much fat, they’ll learn not to do it again.” To put it delicately, eating too much fat while on the pill can cause one to have sudden — well, never mind.

Bottom line? Alli only works effectively if you eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly — stuff you should have been doing in the first place. Truth is that most people do not need the pill; they just need the will to get out and do what is right for their bodies.

All of this suggests that health of body is not something we can separate from a healthy mind and spirit. As wonderful as science may be in producing helpful pills, they must work together with developing a healthier approach to the way you think and behave in life. Body, mind, and spirit must work together.

Coming to this recognition, however, will mean you will need to move against a culture that wants you to remain focused on physical, material, and even political matters. If we can say that a cultural trend is obsession with physical health, I think we can also say that our culture is not obsessed with spiritual health. Of course, the culture will go through phases of an interest in angels or the supernatural, but to focus on personal spiritual health is to beg for someone to say something like, “Ok, next subject.”

Psalm 32 opens with the words regarding spiritual health: “Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” and those “in whose spirit there is no deceit” (vv. 1-2). It might be worth some time to reflect prayerfully upon this psalm. It might be a guide to your health of mind, body, and spirit.