APP: An eating disorder happens when someone eats or refuses to eat in order to satisfy an emotional need instead of a physical one. Normal is when someone eats when they feel hungry and stops when they feel satisfied. Eating disorders are a way of coping with the disappointments and pain of life. Those who struggle with these issues see the eating disorder as a way to find some type of comfort and peace in the midst of the confusion in their daily lives. These disorders have different names, such as anorexia, bulimia, or binging. But someone could still have a disorder even without belonging to one of these categories. Eating disorders can be a problem for guys and girls.
There’s no way we can cope with the confusion, disillusionment, and pain of life on our own. We’re not wired to be capable of this. We need supernatural help that can only come from the living God. Unfortunately, life is not free from sorrow and setbacks. But we have the resources and power necessary to cope and succeed in life. Eating disorders may not be a problem for you, but God can use you to help a friend find a better way to cope.
Didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:19–20 MSG
What’s important in all this is that if you keep a holy day, keep it for God’s sake; if you eat meat, eat it to the glory of God and thank God for prime rib; if you’re a vegetarian, eat vegetables to the glory of God and thank God for broccoli. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It’s God we are answerable to—all the way from life to death and everything in between—not each other. That’s why Jesus lived and died and then lived again: so that he could be our Master across the entire range of life and death, and free us from the petty tyrannies of each other.
ROMANS 14:6–9 MSG
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
EPHESIANS 2:10 NLT
“Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
1 SAMUEL 16:7 NLT