Is disordered eating a sin?
Blog Post by Contributing Editor Claire Coker
Disordered eating is never black and white. Not only is one’s body and mind wrestling with complex thoughts surrounding food and body image, but struggles with disordered eating also can also bring forth questions and concerns surrounding your identity and your beliefs. At first, it may feel like you are doing something “wrong,” but Claire Coker, Chaplain Resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital, explores the grace embedded in the struggle, and how you can learn to trust in the body God gave you.
Questions Beneath The Question
I love curious questions. Questions that don’t shy away, but invite exploration into what scares us, risking an unsettling answer. Or questions that may not ever have a satisfying answer, leaving us with a nuanced gray instead of a simple black or white. I love how the best questions lead to more and more questions. If you’re asking, “Is disordered eating a sin?,” I wonder what other questions could be underneath or behind that curiosity. For example, you may also be asking, “Am I wrong? Am I bad? Is my disordered eating my fault or leading me away from God? Am I still a good Christian if I struggle with this?” All brave and tender questions that strike at the heart of who we are, especially for those seeking faithfulness alongside recovery.
If asking this question is rooted in self-blame or fear, then I invite you to pause. Take a breath and remember to be gentle with yourself as you navigate being a human in this messy, beautiful world. As we wonder what a faithful, loving response to disordered eating could be, in the words of John O’Donohue, I invite you to “Be excessively gentle with yourself.”
Understanding Sin
One of my favorite parts of Christianity is its expansiveness. Christianity includes many varying traditions and denominations. All of these different embodiments of faith stretch and shift throughout time and place. And because of that beautiful, complicated expansiveness throughout Scripture and church history, there is not a single definition of sin. You only have to look around to see how Christians constantly disagree on what warrants the label of sin today. Though we may disagree on the details, we can agree that all is not how we hope it would be. We grieve when systems fail, a family member or friend lets us down, or we disappoint ourselves.
Christians often think of sin as their own individual actions that are either right or wrong, moral or immoral, bringing them closer to God or further away. Another view of sin emphasizes the systemic in addition to the individual, such as the oppressive powers perpetuating unjust systems. In her book, Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation, Barbara Brown Taylor describes sin as a force that is both individual and collective. Some may see sin like a crime that demands justice. Others emphasize sin as an illness in need of healing. Taylor argues that sin is paradoxically both, and this duality is what makes the language of sin in the Christian tradition unique and a theological concept worth holding onto. She writes, “It is a word we use to name a wide variety of things, ranging from individual wrongdoing to social injustice to the built-in fallibility of being human.” Sin is not a simple list of rights or wrongs, but broad enough to name all different causes of pain or experiences of suffering. Sin is language that helps us tell the truth about how we are fragile people who make mistakes while living in an imperfect world. And so we pray, “thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”
You Are Not Doomed
The Christian story is that we do not need to save ourselves from our sin by ourselves. Perhaps counter-intuitively, naming sin can offer hope. By identifying sin, we’re saying this sin - whatever this thing is that causes pain, a loss of innocence, shame, fear, guilt, isolation, injustice, oppression, disconnection from God, or death - this is something that we can be saved from. In the words of Barbara Brown Taylor, “Sometimes we cause the wreckage and sometimes we are simply trapped in it, but either way we are not doomed.” You are not doomed to disordered eating. I believe we can be saved from disordered eating and the pain and disconnection it causes. Maybe it doesn’t feel that way. Maybe disordered eating feels insurmountable. That’s okay. I’ll hold hope for you until you feel you can hold it for yourself. Or, maybe imagining and simply considering the possibility that you could be saved from disordered eating is the first step, and that’s enough for today.
Understanding Disordered Eating
Disordered eating is not simply a way to say, “almost an eating disorder but not quite.” For people who live with disordered eating, they may feel guilt or shame whenever eating, making it difficult to receive the nourishment they need. Others may find disordered eating puts a strain on relationships or leads to isolation. Disordered eating disconnects us from our hunger cues and normalizes ignoring our bodies’ signals. It breaks an internal, intimate trust with our bodies that requires time, care, and gentleness to rebuild. Disordered eating can be a sign of our human frailty in a chaotic world. For some of us, it’s the most accessible coping mechanism when life is stressful, traumatic, or feels out of control. Rigid rules around what food you consume might feel like the one thing you can control in a world of polarization and pain. There is grace and compassion for our bodies doing the best they can to survive.
Answering the Question
In response to the question, “is disordered eating a sin?”, Rock Recovery’s answer is clear. No, disordered eating is not a sin. Your struggle with disordered eating does not make you bad or wrong. Disordered eating does not make you any less loved, less faithful, or less of a Christian. Just because you experience disordered eating, you do not need to dwell in constant guilt or shame. I hope that’s a relief to read and perhaps you can even notice where you feel such relief in your body. Perhaps you can find peace in the paradox that your body may be both imperfect and blessed, both limited and loved, both fragile and a home worthy of wonder.
While that answer matters, I invite us to wonder why we need the label in the first place.
When sin is defined in the individualistic sense or as a moral failure of some sort, then disordered eating is not a sin. If your definition of sin is expansive enough to include the frailty we all experience as humans and the suffering of this world, then perhaps sin offers you language to understand disordered eating within a larger story of redemption. If you understand eating disorders as a result of an oppressive system, maybe naming that system as sinful provides a framework to find justice.
There is clarity in knowing right versus wrong. That clarity is comforting. If we can put things into clear right or wrong categories, then perhaps the formula to living a good, faithful life becomes easier. There are many moments when the right, virtuous, or ethical choices are indeed clear. There are also many moments in a life of faith that are full of uncertainty and mystery. We face dilemmas when the right choice is not always an obvious one.
I trust in a God who is both immanent and mysterious to us. A god who became flesh and a communal God that we can hardly comprehend. I trust in wisdom that holds the emotional honesty of the Psalms alongside the simplicity of pithy Proverbs. I believe asking questions is its own form of faithfulness because I trust in Divine Mystery who does not fear our curiosity, our messiness, or our humanness. I hope asking this question and processing the nuance together is practice in tolerating uncertainty, and that in doing so, we draw closer to Holy Mystery.
I hope drawing closer to God as Holy Mystery offers support as you seek faithfulness alongside recovery. Recovery is full of uncertainty - from the discomfort of moving beyond rigid food rules or tolerating uncertainty around what our bodies may look and feel like after consistent nourishment. I hope we can be comfortable with the mystery together.
Turning Towards Hope
In naming sin, we move towards healing and repair. We acknowledge what is wrong, not to shame ourselves or live in constant guilt or judgment, but to move towards love, flourishing, and repair. Once you notice disordered eating harms the relationship with your body, you can start to rebuild trust over time and repair that relationship with yourself.
I wonder what other questions we can ask alongside, “Is disordered eating a sin?” Perhaps we could ask: Is nourishing my body an act of love that would bring healing? Is turning away from diet culture or fatphobia and towards inclusivity an act of justice? How can I incorporate connection with my body as a spiritual practice? How can I learn to trust this body that God gave me?
So how will we be saved from disordered eating? “The answers will be as varied as our sins…” However mysterious the journey, I have faith that healing from disordered eating is possible.
Claire Coker, Chaplain Resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital
About the Contributor: Claire currently provides spiritual care at Johns Hopkins Hospital as a Chaplain Resident. She received her Master of Divinity from Wesley Theological Seminary in 2020, where she specialized in spirituality and embodiment. Claire incorporates her expertise in public theology when providing care, supporting those navigating the healthcare system to identify their own spiritual resources. Her previous professional experience includes outreach for a network of eating disorder treatment centers, connecting clients and families to care, as well as non-profit operations, ministry, and direct client care.