Weight Control

Saw a bit of a program on the television the other night about the diet industry. It was enough to make you quit eating. 

The dubious ethics of those in the sugar substitute industry, the diet food industry, the pharmaceutical industry ... well, it was pretty shocking.

 

I won’t go into all the details but eventually the presenter ended up at a restaurant out in the Baltic Sea, off Sweden, with a Swedish guy who has had a pioneering operation to keep his weight at a good level. No, it’s not the usual gastric by-pass, which limits the quantities you can consume after you’ve had the op. This goes a step further.

It is basically a plastic tube fitted into the stomach and passing out through the stomach wall, where it looks like – and is – a tap. The guy can eat whatever he wants, as much of it as he desires, and twenty minutes later he just goes to the toilet and turns on the tap. He lets a third of what he’s just eaten drain out of his stomach and down the toilet, rather than it turning to fat in his body.

How immoral! Imagine a world where millions go to bed hungry, and yet there are people fitted with taps so that they can pig out three times (or more) a day without paying any personal price! That is just sick. It bothers me to throw out mouldy bits of bread or outdated jars of jam, but this guy is basically just flushing down the toilet a third of the food he buys and eats.

Ours is a God of justice. He cares for the poor and marginalised, and he sees the injustices perpetrated against them. Many of us are guilty of wasting resources, but this is so flagrant, so calculated to satisfy a person’s gluttony – the price paid may not be paid by the consumer, who remains slim, but by the person denied food because of the greed of others.

I do lots of wrong things which no doubt hurt somebody, but I hope I never consciously choose to satisfy my own cravings, without giving a thought to the needs of others.