These women turn to God for diet help

Each author shares an individual struggle, but they all recommend spiritual guidance

08/09/2003, By KRISTEN HOLLAND / The Dallas Morning News

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Danna Demetre, a registered nurse, once binged and purged.

Vevanne Biggs, a doctor, desperately wanted to lose weight.

Constance Rhodes, a former marketing executive, was a chronic dieter.

Three women. Three problems.

As different as their lives are, all three turned to God for guidance and have published books about their journeys of faith.

Faith-related self-help books are nothing new. Seemingly everyone – from pastors to rabbis to coaches to sales professionals – has taken a stab at the market.

One difference here is that none of the three women offers a specific diet plan or prefabricated workout. They simply tell their stories, hoping they provide guidance to those struggling against the idea that beautiful equals thin.

In Scale Down: A Realistic Guide to Balancing Body, Soul and Spirit (Fleming H. Revell Co., $12.99), Ms. Demetre tells the story of how she discovered, through religion, that spiritual health is as important as physical and mental health.

"I don't tell people how to eat," she said. "First and foremost, I build a foundation based on how God built us. My passion is to have victory in really seeing ourselves accurately, in our body in Christ."

The San Diego resident and 51-year-old mother of two was quick to point out that her faith in God didn't solve her problems. It didn't make her poor nutritional and exercise habits disappear.

She did that one on her own, by eating properly and engaging in what she called "purposeful activity."

Purposeful activity doesn't have to be "exercise" in the traditional sense. Rather, she said, it's any activity, such as gardening or housework, that gets people out and about. And activity ceases to be purposeful if it's done to excess.

"Don't replace one addiction with another," she wrote. "Overindulgence on exercise does not glorify God more than overeating, just because you look better. Juggling the balls of life requires a balance of priorities, an accurate perspective, and proper application of truth."

Another of her themes is that nobody is perfect. God, she said, "doesn't give every single gift to everyone. God designed our bodies the way they are ... I believe you can be fit and a little fat."

The concept that God created everyone different also struck a chord with Dr. Biggs.

When she hit 310 pounds four years ago, she decided it was time to start exercising regularly – or become a health statistic.


In Fat, Fit and Feeling Fabulous: One Woman's Inspiring Journey (Paraclete Press, $15.95), the Scottish physician wrote that rediscovering her faith led her on a journey to health and happiness.
She said she also discovered that she could be fit and healthy, no matter what she weighed.

The 50-year-old wife and mother is still overweight. But she's also an accomplished triathlete, with a dream of completing the Hawaii Ironman competition in a year or two. (Ironman triathlons include a 2.4-mile swim in open water, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run – a full marathon.)

While Ms. Demetre speaks of purposeful activity, Dr. Biggs prefers the term, "godly exercise." That, she said, is as essential to physical health as prayer is to spiritual health.

As with Ms. Demetre, prayer alone didn't help Dr. Biggs.

"You can't just pray and sit back," she said. "You have to ask, 'What can I do to help?' "

Ms. Rhodes answered that question by writing about her internal struggles in Life Inside the Thin Cage: A Personal Look into the Hidden World of the Chronic Dieter (Harold Shaw, $13.99).

The 31-year-old said her life didn't improve – and she didn't overcome her chronic dieting – until she gave herself over to God.

"It really had to do with giving up my control over my life and understanding that there was somebody who does know more about what I'm supposed to be doing on this earth," she said.

"It was understanding that God wanted what is best for me."

She added that church leaders could do more to provide encouragement and support if they recognized the scope of so-called "non-clinical" eating disorders – problems such as obsessing about weight and food, occasional binging and purging and other habits that are unhealthy, even if they aren't as serious as anorexia or bulimia.

"I think that pastors, mostly being men, don't recognize the need as much as they should," she said.

E-mail kholland~dallasnews.com