by Rachel Noorda
Do you remember when Susan W. Tanner (then Young Women’s General President) gave a 2005 talk called “The Sanctity of the Body”? In this talk, she told a story about her mother losing spiritual capacity because she had eaten too many sweet rolls. Here is the story in Tanner’s words:
I was 15 years old when I heard this story in General Conference and I have never forgotten it. Not because it was spiritually enriching or astounding but because something that had previously been implicitly taught to me in my religious culture was being explicitly stated: you can’t be spiritual if you eat too much, if you weigh too much. It’s a lesson I took to heart and have only recently been trying to unlearn and untangle.
In my work life as a teacher and researcher, I wanted to explore diet culture and fatphobia in Mormonism through the lens of diet books. For this purpose, I chose 5 LDS diet books as case studies. If you encountered any of these in your life, I’d love to hear about it.
- The Mormon Diet: 14 Days to New Vigor and Health
- The Diet Solution: Weight Loss, Wellness, and the Word of Wisdom
- Losing It! An LDS Guide to Healthy Living
- Discovering the Word of Wisdom: Surprising Insights from a Whole Food, Plant-Based Perspective
- The Word of Wisdom: Discovering the LDS Code of Health
Through this analysis, I found some interesting things. I’ll briefly share a little bit about them here.
Much like other diet books, diet books for an LDS audience frame the discussion as a health discussion, rather than a weight loss one, even though weight loss is consistently discussed in the books. But unlike other diet books, diet books for an LDS audience focus on the narrative of obedience to the Word of Wisdom as the basic premise. These diet books frame the reader as disobedient (not fully living the Word of Wisdom) and offer various calls to action to remedy the disobedience. In other words (according to these books), Mormons are experiencing poor health, and lack of complete obedience is the culprit. As an individual, it’s much harder to argue against a call to weight loss when it is framed in the narrative of obedience because now size becomes a physical manifestation of spirituality. If it’s not obvious so far, I disagree very much with this premise.
As I explored this research topic, I was struck by the unique way that LDS doctrine frames the relationship between the body and spirit. “The natural man is an enemy to God” suggests that the body and its appetites are sinful and evil; but on the other hand, we’re taught that God has a body so the body is also divine (and as God is, man can become). In any case, there is an extra close connection between body and spirit here, illustrated strongly in Sister Tanner’s story that I shared at the beginning of this post: with the idea that indulgence of the body can negatively affect the spirit.
But the doctrinal connection between body and spirit is problematized by fatphobia and size bias in Mormon communities. A culture of regular non-eating (fasting), BMI restrictions for missionaries, and modesty standards often highlight fatphobia. And this is how we get diet books preaching obedience to the Word of Wisdom in order to lose weight, and leaders telling stories about being unable to pray after eating too many sweet rolls.
If you’re interested to read more of this research, you can check out my article in Fat Studies here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21604851.2024.2394282#abstract.
Rachel is an Associate Professor at Portland State University and director of a graduate program in book publishing there. She’s originally from Utah, but studied in Scotland and really enjoys currently living in the Pacific Northwest. She loves to bake, read, and spend time with her husband.
28 Responses
That poor woman! I can’t imagine it was the indulgence, so much as the preprogrammed internalized shame that any such indulgence ever is a bad thing.
Preprogrammed internalized shame is so damaging. I feel for her too.
I get the mental fog from to much food messing with clarity of thought. But the assumption that the individual needed a clear mind to get revelation from God implies that the individual expected revelation from God that day – which seems counter to the “our ways are not God’s ways” and all that. If God needed to drop some serious inspiration down that day, I doubt that a mere extra hundred calories of sugar and fat would get in the way of God’s plans.
And what if God would have said, “Good on ya for enjoying this really nice mortal thing?”
It’s not as if some of us have multiple connection-building conversations about what “food in heaven is like” and have contemplated whether “divine vegetarianism” is a thing.
Aside from that, men have been the ones writing down history and theology. Which is not bad, because someone needed to. Men are also more aware of how women look (including the waist size/bust size/shoulder size fertility ratio) and the words that got men’s attention in terms of Godly revelation are more in line with “executive functioning specialist (help meet)”, and “life-bearer” (posterity, child-care, and executive functioning “doing the work”), and “youth”. Women with wrinkles and a sassy attitude speak up, speak out, and take up space – and “are an inconvenience” to men who are writing the history books and the theology. They threaten male authority/decision-making because they trust their authority/decision-making.
Thanks for drawing attention to this. It’s so clear once you see it, but easier to be blind to everything you pointed out.
Wow! This is fascinating. And heart breaking. As a young woman I felt that my appearance and sex appeal was tied closely to my worth and value . . . These ideas you brought up are giving me a lot to think about . . .
I want to give that young woman version of you a big hug. I had a very similar experience.
My mother is a Jane Birch devotee (the Discovering the WoW book, Facebook group, plant-based potluck clubs, etc). She goes so far as to celebrate her annual “herbiversary” (the day she went vegan now 12 years ago, although my dad is still sometimes a “jack-vegan”). Eating plant-based is now a marker of her and others’ righteousness and devotion to God, and she has elevated this food lifestyle to the point of orthorexia and alienating family members. (She gives D&C 89 worksheet quizzes at family birthday parties, for example–despite the fact that the D&C does not prohibit meat entirely, in this belief system it is sinful). It can become quite an obsession.
What’s “funny” is that I have heard people say that being vegan/vegetarian is a violation of the WoW because it says to eat meat, but to do so sparingly. Both takes are wrong–we should just eat as we like and let others eat as they like and butt out. (But as a people, Mormons are not great with boundaries. Deep sigh.)
That is so interesting! Thank you for sharing. I do find that there is a missionary-like fervor for any diet to “spread the good news”, and I think that can be especially true for LDS folks.
especially when it has now turned into a religious/health obligation–my mom will sit relatives down and explain that she’s only trying to help them be healthier and more righteous. You can guess how well that’s working for family relationships…
Yikes!
All you have to do to confirm this idea is get on any online discussion of WoW and inevitably someone, usually male, come in and say how coffee isn’t near as bad as …gasp…sugar. And how obese people are the ones REALLY violating the WoW. And blah blah fat shaming, fat phobia, gluttony is a worse sin than adultery because all us good people have to see you blah blah blah. It seems to come up in every WoW discussion.
I think that is one of the most difficult things about the WoW – it makes people think they have the license to comment on other peoples bodies and choices. Great point.
Great post. I just have to add this: if you really want to feel the spirit, you stop eating all together and fast.
I have a very complicated relationship to fasting. What has your relationship with fasting been like?
I like a more “Lenten approach” to Fasting. I don’t think that “Fasting” = “giving up food” anymore (or the only way to donate 2 meals worth of money/goods to the poor).
I treat it more as a “community ritual” that I can adapt to me giving up something meaningful for a specific period of time and donating/finding ways of thinking of others that I can call “fasting” because in essence is still is if I am using my practice of rituals as a community connection point.
But I would be flagged as a “hypocrite” for not following the exact processes of the ritual in the standard way AND trusting my moral authority over institutional authority – so your mileage may vary.
Wow, the Susan W. Tanner story really does make the suspicion of food sadly explicit! I really appreciate your observations about Mormon diet books focusing on different points, like WoW and disobedience, than more mainstream diet books presumably do. I’m guessing this makes them less helpful rather than more, as an extra dose of shaming is hardly what people need when they’re trying to change their eating habits. A thought experiment I’ve sometimes though of is to wonder what would happen if we piled the shaming on around some other activity, like flossing. Sure, flossing is a good and important thing to do. But what if we started in with religious shaming around failure to floss, and said that if you don’t floss every day, you’re *disappointing God*? Would this get people to floss more, or would it just increase their anxiety around what was previously a fairly neutral activity? I’m guessing the latter.
I would be fascinated to read your full article from Fat Studies, but I don’t have access to an academic library. I would love it if you could share it!
Happy to share it! Send me an email at [email protected] and I will send you the PDF.
I didn’t know there were BMI restrictions for missionary service I’m shook.
I know, right? One of my cousins wasn’t allowed on his mission until he lost weight.
I had no idea there were LDS targeted diet books. Is this a Utah thing?
Yes, I’ve had food related weight issues, but I blame it on American culture and unhealthy parental example. So interesting that you bring this connection to light.
The books are published in Utah (Deseret Book and Cedar Fort). The readership is more spread out. As an example, the areas of readership/sales for “The Word of Wisdom: Discovering the LDS Code of Health” are Salt Lake City, UT/ID/CO/NV/WY; Portland, OR; Atlanta, GA/ AL/NC; Raleigh-Durham (Fayetville), NC/VA; and Panama City, FL. The areas of readership/sales for “Discovering the Word of Wisdom” are Salt Lake City, UT/ID/CO/NV/WY; Idaho Falls-Pocatello, ID/WY; Waco-Temple-Bryan, TX; Anchorage, AK; Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, MI; and Bluefield-Beckley-Oak Hill, WV/VA.
Sister Tanner’s story: what in the hell was THAT?
I’ll finish reading the rest of the post after I go raid my kids’ Halloween candy because I feel like eating some chocolate right now. Ha ha ha.
I am eating Halloween candy right now as well: solidarity!
In 2019 my teenage daughter was struggling with a serious eating disorder. I went to the church website looking for supporting resources. Everything I searched led me to the church’s addiction recovery program. It referred to eating disorders as food addictions. A main emphasis of the addiction recovery program was repentance. There was a video of a woman talking about her experience repenting for her binge eating disorder. I couldn’t imagine pressing my vulnerable daughter to repent for her illness when she was already filled with so much shame. Later we found a recovery center and were explicitly told by trained professionals that it is incorrect to call disordered eating an addiction, and that doing so can harm the recovery process. I was taught to approach her illness like any other life-threatening disease. The message that it could’ve somehow been her fault is gross. Can you imagine telling someone to repent of their cancer? (I HAD cancer at the time, and the contrast between how we treat mental illness and physical illness within the church was VERY apparent to me.) My daughter has made a full recovery and is thriving, which I am grateful for. She left the church during her recovery process because of all the weaponized shame she encountered. It was so, so triggering to go to church on Sundays. I highly recommend the book Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings for an excellent analysis on the ways white, Christian, patriarchal societies police the size of women’s bodies.
I am so glad your daughter is thriving now, but the rhetoric of food (which is necessary to live) framed as an “addiction” is incredibly harmful and dangerous. Oof.
The fact that these books are almost exclusively directed to women is extremely telling, as well. Do you think you would ever hear a story about how Russell M. Nelson lost his spiritual connection after eating too many of those post-conference donuts? Unlikely.
Not to say men don’t follow extreme diets based on the WofW—my father in law was constantly on a diet and had book shelves of every diet book published in his office. But to imply that their weight impacted their ability to lead in the church or to receive spiritual guidance because they were not being fully obedient would never happen.
Absolutely! It is very gendered.