SEVERAL YEARS AGO I felt bombarded by ads and TV programs about widespread obesity in the United States. They said that obesity was the result of a self-indulgent search for "the good life," or material satisfaction. I realized that, like many people, I had fallen into a habit of using food as insulation to cope with emotional surges—reactions to injustice, unkindness, and disappointments in my life, all of which resulted in my having a lack of clear purpose and self-respect. The constant need to shop for larger sizes and looser clothing, while trying to keep my appearance up-to-date, also led to discouragement and a loss of joy.
A friend in whom I had confided jump-started my healing with her quiet, spiritual support. We're both accustomed to addressing challenges with prayer, and our conversation encouraged me.
One day as I was reading Science and Health, the following sentence caught my attention: "Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate" (p. 451). And elsewhere in the book it states that the individual who is advancing spiritually "constantly turns away from material sense, and looks towards the imperishable things of Spirit" (p. 21). I had discovered that using food to cope with unsettling emotions was unsatisfactory, but now I could see that it threatened to interfere with my spiritual progress.
