Southern Dietitian Preaches On The Sin Of Fat Weight And Faith Find Common Ground

The camera zeros in on a lone woman standing under bright lights in front of a church full of people. Not a single one of her shoulder-length blond hairs is out of place. Her silk suit is conservatively chic, her poise unshakable, her drawl sweet and Southern.

She could be a television news anchor, except that it is a Bible, not the day’s headlines, that she cradles in her arms.

She quotes Ezekiel, Chapter 8, extensively, then launches into a long, softly spoken fire-andbrimstone sermon.

On the sin of fat.

Her name is Gwen Shamblin, and she is part evangelist and part pragmatist, a Tennessee-based registered dietitian who preaches the spiritual costs and causes of overeating along with the practical ways of stopping it.

On this particular evening, she is preaching, via the miracle of videotape, to 10 women and one man sitting around a videotape player in the parlor of St. Philip Presbyterian Church.

Beezie Cooper, a marriage and family therapist, is leading a faithbased weight-loss workshop that uses Shamblin and her videotapes as a guide for shedding pounds faithfully.

Up to a dozen to two dozen people turn out each Monday for the workshops, which stretch over three months, Cooper said.

In a series of 12 videotaped lessons she calls Weigh Down Workshop, Shamblin, a registered dietitian and evangelical Christian, offers innovative interpretations of Scripture and ample warnings against “following after the false God of food.”

Weight and faith may seem an odd marriage. But it apparently is one that works.

Since the early 1990s, Shamblin has acquired thousands of disciples - who pay $103 each for the videotapes and accompanying workbooks - at thousands of churches across the country.

A program called First Place that originated in Houston has been used in tens of thousands of churches. And signs teasing “Lose Weight Through Prayer” dot the landscape.

Nashville-based Thomas Nelson, publishers of Christian-oriented works, recently released a paperback version of Kenneth Cooper’s successful “Faith and Fitness,” in which the founder of Dallas’ Cooper Aerobics Center contends that God would have us take care of our bodies with exercise.

Shamblin’s discourses aren’t limited to eating, but they are peppered with messages about Christian living as she sees it.

In one videotape, she exhorts listeners to break down the walls of their heart - much like God’s orders to Ezekiel to “dig through the wall” so the Israelites’ sins would be revealed.

As Shamblin described it, the verses apply to overeating because only when you get inside your heart do you understand the source of your actions. And only then can you turn over your entire life, including your eating habits, to the Lord, Shamblin said.

Shamblin, who at one point told viewers that exceeding the speed limit is wrong because “God sets speed limits,” described a time when “you will mourn over overeating this food because it’s against God’s will.”

Some of Shamblin’s theology - one lesson includes Shamblin’s testimony that her life improved when she was able to submit to her husband’s will - isn’t exactly standard Presbyterian fare.

That particular lesson invoked the ire of several members of Beezie Cooper’s group. “I don’t think she gets it,” one woman said after the videotape ended, alluding to Shamblin’s reference to Ephesians 5:22’s admonition “wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”

“We have to die to ourselves and submit to God,” is what the passage is saying, the group agrees.

Nevertheless, there is much practical advice in the program, Cooper said.

For example, Shamblin doesn’t advocate crossing certain foods off your permanent menu. Rather, she preaches moderation. Order what you want in a restaurant, but eat only half of it.

Take the rest home, stash it in the refrigerator and enjoy it anew in a day or so, Shamblin recommends.

Between the theology and the eating advice, Shamblin’s lessons rarely fail to spark intense and introspective discussion.

On this particular night, Skip, the lone man in the group, reveals that his wife, another participant, had gone out of town for several days in the past week, leaving him alone to drown his loneliness in food. “I realized how much damage feeling sorry for yourself can do,” Skip said. “And one thing I have so much respect for now is those of you who live most of your lives alone and don’t have someone to talk with and go through this workshop with.”

Marie, a petite woman in a white warm-up suit, said she is glad to be going through the workshop. “I’ve done every diet on the face of the earth. But I never before just ate until I was full” until Shamblin presented the option, Marie said.

As the hour winds down, Cooper asks everyone to think of one thing they are thankful for. “My scale’s broken, I’m thankful for that,” Marie offered.

The workshop, as always, ends with prayer - for those friends and family of participants who need help, for everyone’s strength.

And as they all stood, hand in hand, Skip offered a final prayer “for each and every one of us to find someone to hold our hand, for those who cannot always feel God’s touch.”