Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in
the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
We are bombarded in our culture with the message of health
and fitness. It is a $27 billion industry and consistently growing. Yet, U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports one in every three American
adults is obese and two of three are overweight.
Where is the disconnect?
Being healthy by eating properly and exercising regularly is
important. When we are not healthy, we cannot live up to the full potential of
God’s purpose for our lives. However, many of us have a skewed view of health and
beauty. Both guys and girls have a poor understanding of body image.
The media plays a large role and it is an easy target to
place much of the blame. It pushes the image of washboard abs, broad shoulders,
defined chest and sculpted arms as the perfect guy. Media tries to sell us
there is a perfect look for the girls with certain hair, lean bodies with
perfect thighs, backside and chest. It uses tricks like plastic surgery, light
tricks and Photoshop to remind us how perfect models and celebrities. No doubt
media deserves a lot of the blame but there is plenty of blame to go around.
Each of us have bought into the “lie” and added our personal
vanity into the problem of self-image. We want to look better than others and
we’ve somehow made it into a competition. We think, “If I work out just a
little more, I will be thinner than her and so-and-so will notice me.” “If I
bulk up a little more, she will see that I am better looking than so-and-so.”
So why do we do this to ourselves? We somehow believe we do
not measure up…measure up to God and with others. Yet, when he created Adam and
Eve, God noticed that his creation was VERY GOOD. God created us with a certain
body type. Within this body type, we should moderate food and exercise to stay
healthy. We should constantly remind ourselves God loves us without any
conditions. When we do this, we live into who God created us to be a little
more at a time. This is a life-long journey.
This past Wednesday night, we talked through this message with our high school students, and we heard from one of our young adults and former students, Jessica Phillips. Jessica shared her journey with our students of really discovering her identity on the other side of struggling with our culture's version of reality.
Body image does not always drive us to unhealthy diets or obsessive workouts, sometimes it means that we have low self-esteem and poor relationships or that we compensate by being the life of wild parties. The way we see ourselves directly affects the way we live our lives. A healthy and whole body image is one that begins with the understanding that each individual is a very good creation created bearing the Image of God, and how we treat God's creation (ourselves) matters.
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