0027 - The Weight - Nicole Morgan - Fat and Faithful
Shownotes
Many Christians engage with the topic of body image in a toxic manner. The Church often perpetuates negative, unhealthy ideologies regarding body image, thus failing to honor people of all sizes. How can we better uplift the sacred worth found in each body?
Author, seminarian, and podcast host Nicole Morgan has developed a deep understanding of how the Christian Church has wrongfully taught its members, particularly women, to be ashamed of their bodies. Motivated by her own experiences, she wrote the acclaimed book “Fat and Faithful: Learning to Love Our Bodies, Our Neighbors, and Ourselves,” in which she explores the false narratives about body image and reminds readers that everyone - regardless of size - is treasured by God.
She joins Eddie and Chris to talk about her journey towards “fat acceptance” and her mission to help people of all sizes see that they are beloved and worthy of being celebrated. They have an honest discussion about the ways church leaders made Nicole feel like her body was unacceptable in the Christian faith and her subsequent journey of deconstruction. Nicole helps us consider how we can not only recognize the worth of every body size, but also how we can cultivate a narrative that focuses on uplifting rather than shaming.
The Weight Afterthoughts
We've realized that a lot of great conversation actually happens AFTER we say goodbye to our guests and turn the microphones off. So, we decided to turn the mics back on (and a camera) and create a new segment called, Afterthoughts.
This will live on our new YouTube channel and you can find our Afterthoughts on this episode NOW!
Resources:
You can order Nicole’s book “Fat and Faithful: Learning to Love Our Bodies, Our Neighbors, and Ourselves” here: https://www.amazon.com/Fat-Faithful-Learning-Neighbors-Ourselves/dp/1506425224
Follow Nicole’s podcast “Fat and Faithful” here: https://fatandfaithful.libsyn.com/
Follow Nicole on the web: https://jnicolemorgan.com/
Follow Nicole on social media:
https://www.facebook.com/Fatness.Faith/
Full Transcript
Eddie Rester : 0:00
I'm Eddie Rester.
Chris McAlilly : 0:01
I'm Chris McAlilly.
Eddie Rester : 0:02
And we welcome you today to an episode of The Weight.
Chris McAlilly : 0:06
Today we're talking to Nicole Morgan, who is the author of a book called "Fat and Faithful" and a podcast by the same name.
Eddie Rester : 0:14
It's an important conversation because, at least for me, it opened me to some things that I hadn't thought about before. Maybe some ways that I was doing some things that maybe weren't helping the full body of Christ.
Chris McAlilly : 0:30
The church has a responsibility to all its members. And one of the ways in which we need to wrestle with that is around body image and the way that we relate to food and to eating and to the kind of intentional and unintentional cultural norms we're setting as the church today.
Eddie Rester : 0:55
I think if you're listening, then it's a great conversation, because it is going to force you to think about some things about yourself, others, how you talk to others, about others. But I think even her journey of how she got to this place to write this book and how she's become just an activist around this, in the very best sense of the word.
Chris McAlilly : 1:22
There's a journey of faith that a lot of young people go through where they grow up in a church. They receive some good things and some things that weren't so good. There's a journey of deconstruction and kind of coming back to a deep, rich faith, and then having a lesson to bring back to the church.
Eddie Rester : 1:40
Back to the church.
Chris McAlilly : 1:41
That's her story. And so wherever you are on that journey, or if you're a leader of Christian community, I think this will be a helpful conversation.
Eddie Rester : 1:52
I think it will be. Thank you for listening, and go ahead and like us, follow us.
Chris McAlilly : 1:56
Like us. Follow us.
Eddie Rester : 1:57
They already like us, but follow us.
Chris McAlilly : 1:59
Follow us. Share the podcast.
Eddie Rester : 2:00
Share with other people as well. [INTRO] Let's be honest, there are some topics that are too heavy for a 20 minute sermon. There are issues that need conversation, not just explanation.
Chris McAlilly : 2:12
We believe that the church is called to engage in a way that honors the weightiness and importance of these topics for how we live faithfully today. We'll cover everything from art to mental health, social injustice to the future of the church.
Eddie Rester : 2:24
If it's something that culture talks about, we need to be talking about it, too. [END INTRO] Today, we have Nicole Morgan with us. We're excited to have her. She has written books. She has a great podcast. She's written articles for Christianity Today and other mag... people still do magazines?
Chris McAlilly : 2:44
It's an online thing. I don't know. It's not, I mean, you know, people do the print things still, but it's a lot of online stuff.
Eddie Rester : 2:51
Nicole, welcome.
Nicole Morgan : 2:52
Thank you. It's so good to be here. Excited for this.
Eddie Rester : 2:55
Yeah. You, let's just start, you wrote a book called "Fat and Faithful" I think about three years ago, that really helped bring some conversation forward for us, for all of us. And so before we talk about that, kind of let's back up a little bit. How did you get there? How, what moved you across the years, maybe, to kind of get you to a place where writing that book was important?
Nicole Morgan : 3:23
Yeah, so I wrote this book, and it was kind of a surprise. I thought about writing a book, but actually writing the book, just kind of all the factors came together at the right time. I have been fat my entire life, since I was a child. And as a teenager and a young adult, I grew up in a very devout family. I was very a devout Christian. And I always felt like my fat body was not only in our culture unacceptable, but unacceptable in my faith. I thought that God wanted me to be thin because then I could be a better Christian. When I was in college, I stumbled into the idea of fat acceptance in a secular framework. I was looking online for ideas of how to wear fashion that might make me look thinner and accidentally found a fat acceptance online community. And I probably spent a good five years just kind of reading and exploring this idea. It was brand new to me, this idea that maybe fat wasn't a bad thing to be. That maybe I didn't fully understand the science, and that it wasn't as simple as everyone made it look like. And so as I read more and more medical studies and just things about politics and the way that fat people face discrimination or lack of access to different things, I became more and more convinced that in terms of social, culture, and medical that I didn't need to lose weight in order to be a good person. And that there were ways that I could pursue health, that I could wear clothes that I liked, that I could advocate for fat people to be accepted in society. And I didn't have to spend my time obsessed with losing weight. And as I thought about where my negative body image came from, as I said, I grew up in a very Christian home. We were pretty sheltered from outside secular media when I was a kid. And so I didn't have the story of magazines and movies and these unrealistic body ideals, but I did have my faith background. And in the church I grew up in, there were often on the Wednesday night or Sunday night education classes, there would be faith-based weight loss classes that met in my church, and those would be advertised in our bulletin or on the halls of the Sunday school classrooms. And my pastor, I recall that he would often, in his sermons, if he was talking about self control or the fruit of the Spirit, he would talk about how he ate right and exercised so that he wouldn't become a fat and lazy preacher. And so as I interrogated kind of where my self-image issues had come from, I realized that a lot of them for me had come from the church. There was one day in particular, it was shortly after I graduated college, and I had stopped at my church for an early morning prayer time that was just open to whoever wanted to be there. And I was just dealing with a lot of things in my life at that moment. None of it had to do with my body. And I was at the altar, praying, and visibly kind of upset and distressed and another woman came over to pray with me, and she started praying out loud over me. I don't remember her exact words, but the gist was that she was praying that I'd be freed from the sin of gluttony. And she was also a fat woman, and so I think she was just assuming a common struggle there and that's all that I could have possibly been that upset about. So that was kind of the moment I knew. At that point, I was already on board with fat acceptance. And at that moment, I was like, I've got to speak about this in the church. And I have to talk about how our theology of bodies is damaging to fat people. Because at that moment, I had some significant needs and some significant struggles in my life, and they weren't seen because someone assumed they knew what was wrong because of my body.
Chris McAlilly : 7:39
I think that there are a lot of people who grow up in the church, particularly certain Christian communities or cultures or traditions that have to spend some time--even if they have really positive experiences in the church--almost doing some work of deconstruction. I remember, my dad's a pastor and my grandfather as well. I remember my dad had a conversation with--and I had a very positive experience in the church growing up.
Nicole Morgan : 8:08
Yeah.
Chris McAlilly : 8:08
But I remember he said to me, I think he had seen some movie over Christmas. It was a... what was that movie? It was, uh, Robert De Niro, "Everything's Fine" was the movie.
Nicole Morgan : 8:20
Yes, I remember that one.
Chris McAlilly : 8:21
Yeah. And so the mother has died, and the three children now live far away. And the question is, are they going to come back for Christmas. And the Robert De Niro father character sends out the invitation; none the children want to come home, and he realizes that everything wasn't fine. And I think it triggered something in my dad, he's like, "I need to go apologize for every bad parenting and pastoral thing that may be influencing me," And he basically sent me a message and basically said, "I hope that you received all the good things, but anything that you... that was damaging or hard, I apologize for that. And I want you to let that all fall away." And I think that that's the case for a lot of people growing up in the church. I hear that in your story too.
Nicole Morgan : 9:02
For sure.
Chris McAlilly : 9:03
You're not, I don't hear in your story, a desire to flee from the church or from faith, but to do a kind of work of almost deconstruction of some things that you received, that were actually not, you know, probably not even intended by your Christian community, but that was implicit in some of the Christian language and preaching and teaching. Can you talk about what that is? You know, if somebody's struggling, like, where do you even begin? I mean, it sounds like for you, you found this whole community and body of secular kind of critique of American culture, particularly culture around bodies and images--body image--that you can use to kind of come back to the church and to faith. Can you just talk a little bit about what that process was like for you?
Nicole Morgan : 9:57
Sure. So when I was in seminary and I began to write my papers there, I just kept gravitating towards this idea of embodiment, or how we live our faith out in our bodies. And that wasn't my plan when I went into seminary, actually, but those interests just converged. And so for me, I fully affirm what you're saying, that the people weren't trying to be hurtful when they prayed for me, or when they used those sermon examples, or when they started Bible studies that focused on weight loss. Like the goal was for us to be holistically people of faith, to integrate our entire selves into our faith. And they were doing that the way that they knew how. And so my goal is to speak to the church of which I am still a part and say, let's rethink that. Like what actually is life-giving to each of us and to the church? And for me, the core kind of principles of that are first just the idea of imago dei, that we're all created in the image of God, and that every single person on this earth is different. And so we all make up this picture of who God is. And when we can come together and each be fully who we are, then we get a broader picture of God. To try and say that one body type is not the image of God, that it needs to shift to become the image of God, I think we lose something about how we understand who God is. So a fat body tells the world the story of who God is in a way that a thin body doesn't. And so, the easy one to think of for that is just this idea of, like, comfort and warmth and softness and the way that a fat body offers that type of comfort to others in a way that imitates and mimics who God is. But also ideas of steadfastness: if I decided to plant my physical body in a spot on this earth, it is very hard to move me. And so this idea that a fat body shows us that God is steadfast and not easily moved, and is solid. And thin bodies offer different perspectives on who God is. But if we see each body as the image of God, then we start to ask what those bodies show us about God, and we get a fuller picture. Beyond that, is just the idea that we, as a church, are the body of Christ. And so we have this body image again. And with, in the Scriptures, it's constantly talking about how we need all of the parts and that when we're working together, then we fulfill the mission of the church, which is to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And if half of your church is so distracted with the idea that they have to lose weight, that's their most important goal in order to become holy, they can't live into loving their neighbors. We're supposed to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. If we don't love ourselves, then extending that love outwards and as a means of expanding God's kingdom on earth becomes really complicated, because we don't have the freedom ourselves. So it's harder to share it with others.
Eddie Rester : 13:23
I just preached on that passage in 1 Corinthians 12, about the body of Christ and never would have thought to extend it into that arena of body image and body size. Because typically, we focus on it in a very different way, a very kind of staid, traditional, "you've got gifts, he's got gifts, she's got gifts,"
Nicole Morgan : 13:45
Hands and feet.
Eddie Rester : 13:46
Hands and feet. And so that's a... just an eye-opening way to think about that passage of scripture.
Chris McAlilly : 13:54
I think if you're out there and you have, and you're doing... I think one of the things I hear in your story, Nicole is just, there's a... I hope that people feel empowered to kind of come back to the scriptures that were given to them and maybe that they had, you know... I think when I decided that I wanted to really make a go of not just being a pastor, but coming back to be even a serious follower of Jesus, it meant that I had to come back to the scripture, and I had to wrestle with it for myself. And I think what's really... I think you offer a model, not just for folks who are kind of wrestling with body image or body type and how it fits within the body of Christ, but also, I think anybody who's out there who needs to do a bit of that work of deconstruction, of re-engaging the scripture, I think when you come back to it with fresh eyes and almost engage it, there's something that you can offer to the church that, you know... And I think this this is the case... that laity, folks who aren't preaching in the pulpit every Sunday, can feel encouraged by, in your story.
Nicole Morgan : 15:09
For sure. And I've had those experiences, where there's one particular passage of scripture that when I was a teenager, it was like what I had posted inside my locker at school to motivate me to, you know, try to lose weight. Romans 12:1 and 2, which talks about not being conformed to the world, but to offer your bodies as living sacrifices. And there was a period of years where I was, like, going through my own faith deconstruction and learning about fat acceptance, where I just couldn't read that scripture. Like, I had to ignore it. I couldn't deal with it. And then years into this, in starting to see how it connected to faith, I read it again, and I realized that the scripture said that our bodies are holy and acceptable. And that my entire youth I had been trying to make my body holy and acceptable. I had been interpreting it with a lens that I needed to change something. And in reality, the scripture always said that my body is holy and acceptable. And it's a spiritual act of worship to present it to God.
Eddie Rester : 16:12
I've listened to you on your podcast, which is also called Fat and Faithful, talk with your partner on the podcast just about that moment for you. And it really was powerful to hear the two of you talk about that moment where scripture really welcomed you, and that through that scripture that one time had pushed you in a very different direction. One thing I want to, I hope people have picked up on as you talk, you don't shy away from the word "fat." Why? I mean, why is that? How did that come about? Why do you claim that word?
Nicole Morgan : 16:57
So that is part of the broader fat acceptance movement that's been going on for decades. But the original people in the fat acceptance movement, they just, they reclaimed that word as a neutral adjective. It's an accurate depiction of the size of someone's body, that we understand what it means. And we just view it the same as before talking about the color of our hair or our eyes. It's just a neutral adjective. And part of that is it just it... Why can't I think of the word? It disarms it. If someone calls me fat, I'm not offended. They're just describing reality. And you see this a lot with kids who will call adults fat or other kids fat and so often with children, especially, they're just noticing the world. And it's how we respond to that. And if we tell them that's a bad word or not, that starts training them to view it as negative. But my goal is for fat to just be a way that people exist and not something that we have to hush and whisper and be ashamed of.
Chris McAlilly : 18:04
There's a real intentionality to language that I hear in your work and in the way in which language shapes not only, kind of, a person or individual but also a culture. I guess for someone who isn't yet at the place where they can claim that adjective as their own, are there other ways within the fat acceptance movement to kind of talk about bodies as having equal dignity, you know, that's not connected to to size? Can you kind of talk through that a little bit?
Nicole Morgan : 18:42
Yeah, so a lot of people still use the word "plus size" within the fat acceptance community. That's connected to clothing most often, and that tends to be more about women than men. And "big," "stocky," "sturdy." We tend to ask people or to advocate for people not to use the word "overweight" because the "over" implies that there's some number that's the right number. And then we tend to not use the word "obese" because it's a medical term that makes, that pathologizes fat bodies. It makes our bodies diseases instead of humanity. And so a lot of fat acceptance advocates will classify "obese" as a slur. And then I think just a lot of people will say "fluffy" and "curvy," and that's really just personal preference. I tend to be, like, stick-to-the facts kind of person and I don't want like lots of fluffy language, but if that's what works for people. And then I would say if you're talking about other people's bodies, just go with their lead. Like, use the words that they call themselves. It's so tricky. Everyone is in 500 different points of this journey. You want to honor people and not offend them, like, don't go around and call every fat person you see fat if you don't know where they're at on their journey, because that could cause lots of offence and hurt feelings. And that's worth considering.
Chris McAlilly : 20:12
I think that I, this comes up in relationship, the church's relationship with a lot of communities, a lot of different groups of people who are, you know... I think, I guess as you talk about, as I hear it in this conversation, it feels like an attendant, an attunement or a deep attention to the way people use language about themselves, is a form of loving your neighbor well, and honoring their dignity and their humanity across difference. I also think that, like, this whole conversation just gets misunderstood a lot in the church and people will dismiss. I mean, it is hard to do this work. I mean, let me just confess, like I think. And there are times where it's, you know, you have these habits of speech and language based on a whole range of factors. And it's hard. You know, it's easy to dismiss it as well. It's like, just, you know, political correctness or some kind of... You know what I mean? Do you ever come across some of those kind of dismissals of the conversation in, you know, in your circles or communities, Nicole?
Nicole Morgan : 21:23
For sure, there's this whole argument that we should fat shame people. Like, so there are people who still believe that everyone should be thin. And so they will intentionally use the language because they're trying to signal that belief to others. I know they might even say "fat" but they mean it as an insult, and you can tell from the context. Or they will use "overweight" and "obese" intentionally to remind people that their bodies are wrong. Or even not that sinister, they just think it's ridiculous, and so they'll use it as this, like, "I don't care. I'm not politically correct. I'm going to say what I want. Who cares if you're offended?" you know, kind of dismissal, which is just... It's not a nice way to be a human, regardless of, you know, who you're talking about. I have... One of the recent ways that I've had to shift my language is to stop using analogies where blindness and deafness are seen as negatives, where I talk about being blind or deaf. Because friends who are blind and deaf have told me, like, "That's hurtful. That's my reality. And I'm not unintelligent, and I don't miss things, like, I just have this physical difference." And they've asked me to not use those as negatives. And I'm, like, okay. And that takes some time. I have to think about my language.
Eddie Rester : 22:52
But it's part of being a neighbor. I mean,
Nicole Morgan : 22:54
Right. And that's one of my big arguments. Like, no, it's not as easy as if you lose weight then you'll be a good human and a good Christian. Like, you actually have to think about your neighbors. You have to think about what they need. You have to think about how your choices impact them. Like, it's harder than just getting on a scale.
Chris McAlilly : 23:13
I wonder, I mean, you know, the conversation about bodies and body image and body shapes, I think a step beyond that--and I think this is also a part of the Christian conversation in the last 10 years or 20 years, as it relates to living faithfully in our bodies--is eating. You know, I wonder, can you talk a little bit about, about, just about how you think about that activity? I mean, I've, I think everyone who is human, you know, I mean, especially as you kind of hit middle age, which is about where I am, you start to really think about your habits of eating.
Eddie Rester : 23:49
Wait a minute. You're middle aged? What am I?
Chris McAlilly : 23:51
You're getting old... I mean, you're close. I'm close to 40. I don't know what the life expectancy is right now. You're close to 50. So clearly, you're a little bit past middle aged.
Nicole Morgan : 24:01
That's fair. Somewhere near the top of the hill.
Chris McAlilly : 24:03
I know.
Eddie Rester : 24:05
We'll get back to this.
Chris McAlilly : 24:06
Let's get back to language. This is an ongoing debate between Eddie and I. So we apologize, that's for another day. But I just wonder, I guess, how do you think about eating? Or how would you encourage someone who's really just kind of starting out on this journey to kind of rethink or to think differently or shape their relationship to food?
Nicole Morgan : 24:28
So from like a Christian theological perspective, in the Bible, we see God ordaining feast and fast and then there's also the discussion of gluttony. And so this idea, I think there's this common cultural idea that if you're fat, you're a glutton, and that gluttony is when you eat a lot of food. And I think those definitions are at best oversimplified, and also just wrong. When I look at scripture, when you look at where it talks about gluttony, one of the prime examples is there's a king in Judges, his name is King Eglon. And it's, the story is, like, there's this very like bathroom humor story. He's, it talks, describes him as his very fat king and there's... he gets murdered by a dagger that sinks into the folds of his belly, and there's intestines and bathroom all over the story. It's, you know,
Chris McAlilly : 25:29
That's a story that Eddie loves.
Nicole Morgan : 25:31
Yes.
Chris McAlilly : 25:31
Eddie loves these stories.
Nicole Morgan : 25:33
It's meant to be funny. But they described the king as living in this palace with cool marble and palm trees and all of this food. And his subjects live in poverty, in the desert, in the heat, and it's hot and dry. And King Eglon is a glutton. Not because he's fat; he is. But because he takes the resources that are meant for everyone and he hoards them.
Chris McAlilly : 26:03
My lawd.
Nicole Morgan : 26:05
And that is gluttony. And you see it again if you look at the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Ezekiel, the verse is that "the sin of Sodom was that they were overfed and unconcerned with the poor." So again, they took the resources that were supposed to be for everyone, and they hoarded them, and they consumed them on their own. And so, for me, the Bible ordains fasting, God--not fasting, fasting, but also feasting--God tells us to feast. God tells us to indulge in abundance when it's available, and that's a way that we celebrate each other and we honor God. But when you take to the point that others don't have, that is when it's gluttony, and anyone is capable of that. And I think it's super complicated in our modern age, because you have to think about how farm workers are treated and factory farm workers and, you know, who's getting paid to harvest this food that's at my table? And how much are they getting paid? And are they being mistreated? And there's 500 questions. And there's no way... I think the way that our economy is set up, like, it's hard to avoid any of that. But as much as we can approach and be intentional about knowing how our consumption affects our neighbors, then I think we're moving toward God's heart for food and our bodies in a way that connects us.
Eddie Rester : 27:30
It's real hard. You mentioned our economy today. To sometimes even begin to understand what, how I might be participating in gluttony without ever even realizing it. What choices am I making at the local level? Not just with what I put on my plate in front of me, but with what I'm putting on my plate that steals, or what I'm consuming in other ways that steals from the welbeing of a neighbor that may be 600 miles from me, harvesting avocados or tomatoes.
Chris McAlilly : 28:06
I think this, for me, this is one of those places where you begin to realize the extent to which the church--and then within that particular individual Christians, myself kind of at the top--have been shaped by consumer, kind of the practices of a consumer culture and consumer capitalism. I just assumed that they're going to be avocados at the Kroger when I go to the Kroger. And one of the things that's fascinating about the pandemic, particularly at the very beginning, is when I did my Kroger pickup order and ordered the, you know, whatever the thing is that I just assume is gonna be there. It wasn't there. And I experienced that as, like "What? Why in the world would Kroger not have this thing that I want when I want it?" I don't know. I kind of was thrown back on just the extent. I was just kind of surprised at how deeply the patterns in my life are shaped by those kind of, you know the consumptive patterns of food and eating that are just there. And doing that work to get out of that or to begin to think about food systems in a different way, or farmers in a different way, or food workers, or factory food workers in different way, that takes so much time. And you really do need a community of people. And I think that you need a whole community of people to help you kind of work through some of those questions. But I do think that there's some really interesting conversations happening in the church around all of this right now.
Eddie Rester : 29:39
Even during the pandemic, when you start to hear news stories about the spread of COVID at chicken factories and pork factories, pork processing plants. I mean, it really began... we began finally to get some information about "here's how this works." We're expecting these people to work in crowded, hot conditions, where this virus can spread easily, so that we can eat. And, you know, there's a lot of panic around that when we couldn't get what we wanted.
Nicole Morgan : 30:13
Yeah, I just recently, maybe a month ago or so, I read one of those articles about the meatpacking workers. I was like, "I've got to make the switch." And so you know, I found a local farmers market that had a local farm and I was like, "This is ridiculously expensive. But like, for today, this is how I'm loving my neighbor, is I'm buying the really expensive chicken instead of the one from the grocery store." And I know, I mean, it's hard because food is expensive, and there's all kinds of economic things for individuals on what choices you can make. But yeah, I'm like "lots of grace and do your best." It's kind of my standpoint there.
Eddie Rester : 30:55
What are some of the misunderstandings people, that you've experienced, people have pushed back on you, about, with fat acceptance. What do you hear regularly? That you find yourself having to say "no, this is what we mean, or this is how I would encourage you to see that."
Nicole Morgan : 31:14
Yeah, I think one of the bigger ones, and it's getting less common as it becomes more widely known, that people think I want everyone to be fat. And that is not the case. I just want fat people to be able to be fat without a bunch of, you know, grief for it. So there are some people who think that fat acceptance means we want everyone to do whatever they need to do to become fat. That's not true. And another one is that people think it's all about body image. When the truth is that's a part of it, a significant part of it, but it's also about how fat people can exist in physical spaces. And so, right now no one's really going to restaurants, but in general when restaurants are a thing we do, the booths or the seating at restaurants can often be problematic for fat people. And so there's this structural barrier to fat people being able to participate in the life of their community with friends or family, like there's this extra thing they have to think about. Or a very common one is when your church does, like, a trip or an event, and everyone gets T-shirts, and maybe the T-shirts only go up to 2X. And so there's these people that can't be a part of the group in that way, because there's not a shirt for that. And so there's this, like, visible sign of exclusion. Um,
Eddie Rester : 32:42
I was a youth director at... oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Nicole Morgan : 32:44
I was gonna say, like, baptismal robes. That's another size thing. But yeah, there's just these ways that fat people are structurally excluded from life in their communities.
Chris McAlilly : 32:53
One of the people that put us on to your work is our friend Sarah Jo, who's a clergywoman in our conference, who is one of our good friends. And she had a question I wanted to get to, that I wanted to ask you. One of the themes she picks up in your work is just the way in which we can come to trust our bodies. And so she asks, there's a move toward intuitive eating--the idea that you should listen to your body to tell you when and what to eat. How do you reconcile that with the possibility that our desires are sometimes disordered? Basically, can bodies really always be trusted?
Nicole Morgan : 33:37
It's a really good question. I am a proponent of intuitive eating. And I think that if you can do it with a therapist, you're, that's the best. And for me, when I first started trying to eat intuitively--and this was before I even really knew the name for that--there was this period of time where didn't eat in ways that were super healthy for me. Like it made me feel bad. And, like, it was because I had restricted for so long. And then suddenly I had freedom. I did... You know, I enjoyed the freedom and the not feeling like I had to follow all of these rules. And I think people are scared of that. And so my advice is... The goal is that you evaluate how food impacts your body, whether it's emotional, physical, that you're really intentional about how each food interacts with you personally. And so once I realized what I was doing, I'm like, "Oh, this actually, I actually, like, feel really bad now, because I did XYZ and that wasn't good for me. That made whatever hurt or feel bad." And so I was able to take that data and move forward with it. And then in terms of, like, our bodies having desires that might not be in line with, like, our faith goals... like, you just, you work that into part of how you're evaluating, if you're moving closer to who you want to be holistically or not. And that was kind of a vague answer. I was trying to think of an example that I'm not thinking of. But it's this constant check. Like, there's not a rule that fits everyone. And that's what's so hard about it. You have to, like, do, intentionally do, this work, where you're being honest with yourself about what your goals are, and how you actually feel.
Chris McAlilly : 35:29
I think it's really good advice, that you wouldn't try to do this work alone. This is complicated, because I mean, it really gets down to the core of who a person is and what they want for themselves and what God hopes for them in terms of holistic health.
Nicole Morgan : 35:44
Yes.
Chris McAlilly : 35:44
And the the idea that you would chart out on a new trajectory in the company of someone who is, you know, out, looking out for your best interest--particularly in the context of counseling or therapy--I think it's really good advice. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Nicole Morgan : 36:05
Yeah. So I'm a big fan of therapists as you need them, whether you're having a trauma or not. But just being intentional and giving yourself the gift of dedicated time to talk through your goals and where you're at on them, and to have someone who can help direct your thoughts and your questions to a place where you're going to be able to answer those for yourself, it's just crucial. And, you know, for people of faith, there's other, there's counselors who come at it from a perspective of faith. I don't necessarily think you have to go to a Christian counselor, if you're a Christian. Like, counselors should be able to help you center around your values no matter what they are. But having--and it doesn't have to be a professional counselor--but having someone else who's on board with you evaluating how your food and your movement and your body is a part of your life and whether or not you're working towards your actual goals, just gives you an accountability and gives you that other person who can say, "You're not crazy. It's okay that you had chocolate cake. That was not a sin. Like, you're allowed to enjoy someone's birthday." And you kind of fight back some of those lies that we grow up believing about food and our bodies, and someone else who could just verbally say, this is okay. And especially if you gain weight as you're doing intuitive eating. That can be really shocking for people, and they can think that that's a sign it's not working. And so having someone else to help remind you that bodies shift, and that's not a value judgment. It's just a reality of our bodies. And what are we, what are our actual goals? And are we approaching them?
Eddie Rester : 37:52
You mentioned that, you know, as we grow up, we learn things and I'm a dad of two daughters. Both teenagers, older teenagers. Chris has three younger kids. As you think about parenting, what's some advice you would give for parents to help their children think through these things in a healthy--and not just healthy in terms of physical health, but theological health, as well.
Nicole Morgan : 38:24
My co-host on my podcast Amanda's much better at the parenting advice because she's a parent. But for me is I have nieces and nephews, and what I try and do with them, is I try to focus on their personalities and not their bodies, in terms of complimenting them on what their brains can do, like the work that they're doing, or how creative they are, or to comment on how well they treated someone else or how that they can be better friends to their other, to their classmates. But at the same time, like, you can't ignore the kids' bodies, because they're hearing about it from everywhere else. And they want to know that, you know, they're strong and beautiful. And those kind of compliments mean something as well. And so I think as long as that's not the only thing that matters, that they're hearing from their parents and other adults that who you are is good. That your body is good. That you don't need to fix or change it. That you're not going to be better if you eat broccoli instead of a cookie for dinner. Affirming them there. In terms of like nutrition for kids, I think there's lots of good advice and good science, unlike allowing kids to just kind of choose their food. Kids tend to be pretty natural intuitive eaters. They eat when they want. They eat what they want. And as much as we can, like, let them lean in towards their natural inclinations and help them connect if they have a tummy ache after, you know, whatever, and help them say, "oh, maybe that's because you had XYZ for lunch." And they can just make those natural connections on their own.
Chris McAlilly : 40:19
Take a step beyond families and ask if you've ever--I really loved the idea of reframing the whole conversation in a community around feasting and fasting. Giving people permission to feast and fast, and to do that communally, not just as an individual choice, but as a, you know, as a body, as a church community. I'm going to ask one question. The one question I would ask would be, have you ever seen a community or a church do that really well? And then, if the answer is no, I mean, I'm sitting here trying to think about have I ever seen the church do that well, and I'm not, I'm coming up not with a lot of examples. And so then I guess the another way to frame the question would be, what advice would you give to pastors and leaders of churches as they shape the kinds of conversations and teaching and preaching and, I guess, practices to lead to a more, kind of, holistic health in our embodied life together?
Nicole Morgan : 41:28
Yeah. So the only time I've really seen it done well, when a, my last year of seminary, small group of people that were, like, we all lived near each other in the student housing, and we had weekly dinners together every week. I don't even remember how, somehow just early on in this, we were all sitting around talking, and we all just got super vulnerable, super fast, and just shared various things that we'd struggled with. And most of us had struggled with eating disorders or body image at some point. This was a mixed gender group. And so, just naturally without even saying the rules, as we each had, as we had dinner every week, there was never any fat jokes. There was never any comments about what the meal was going to do to our bodies or our worries or our fears about it. We all took turns cooking. There was a wide, different variety of food every week. And it just became a time where we were able to enjoy food together and our conversations. If I could bottle that formula and, like, sell the plan for how to implement it, I would because it was very, very free. And when we got to the season of Lent, and we all decided what we are fasting from--some of us chose different food things, but again, there was none of this, you know, "Lent is a diet." It was just, we were talking about, like, what we were fasting from in order to refocus ourselves on, you know, the ideas of lament and focus on God and suffering and the things you're supposed to think about with Lent. And so there was just this community that had been honest with each other about our struggles, and had enjoyed time with each other over meals. And it became this very beautiful year that I have no idea how to replicate except to say, be honest and vulnerable.
Eddie Rester : 43:30
It can be done.
Nicole Morgan : 43:31
With each other,
Eddie Rester : 43:31
But it can be done. Yeah,
Nicole Morgan : 43:33
Yeah. And that was a small scale, you know, but for a larger scale, for a church, my biggest advice for pastors and leaders is just to make sure that your sermons and your announcements are just fat-joke free. So when you're talking about the potluck, or the Wednesday night supper or whatever type of food your church does, that the ideas of jokes about dessert and breads just don't happen. That you're intentional about it, both with your own language as the pastor and leader, and that in whatever way to communicate that to the rest of your congregation, whether you have, like, a meal planning committee or whoever's organizing all the events and then have a meeting with them to talk about, you know, "we want to be intentional about this. We want to really think about are we doing this? Are we encouraging people to make fat jokes during our potlucks? And what can we do, what works for our community to bring this up as a discussion to have?"
Eddie Rester : 44:40
That's, that's all great because churches, pre-pandemic and I'm assuming one day post-pandemic, are places of food and that's who we're supposed to be when we go all the way back to the book of Acts, when the early church gathered to eat and then fought about eating and struggled with how to eat together. And it may be time for us to struggle, a little bit more about how we eat with one another and come to the table together. As you talked about feasting earlier, I was thinking about the end of our communion liturgy where we talk about, you know, one body unified until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet. There's so much for us to celebrate around the table together. Nicole, I want to thank you for your time with us today. It's been a great conversation. It's hard to believe our time is up already. For folks who are listening, the book is "Fat and Faithful," and the podcast as well, which has great conversations is also called Fat and Faithful. I think you can find that on iTunes and Spotify and all those places.
Chris McAlilly : 45:46
Definitely, if you're interested in this conversation, continue to follow that podcast and read Nicole's book. And I just want to say a word of gratitude as well, Nicole, for you taking the time to be with us. Thank you so, so much.
Nicole Morgan : 46:00
Thank you. I really enjoyed it.
Eddie Rester : 46:03
[OUTRO] Thank you for listening today. Go ahead and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And go ahead and hit the subscribe button on whatever platform you use to listen to podcasts.
Chris McAlilly : 46:13
This wouldn't be possible without our partner General Board of Higher Education in Ministry. We want to thank also our producer, Cody Hickman. Follow us next week. We'll be back with another episode of The Weight. [END OUTRO]