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By Grace Fox
PIZZA, potato chips, pop – perfect party menu,
right? Wrong!
Research shows that, although these foods are
palate-pleasing, their contents can throw us into a dangerous cycle.
Playing on our emotions and preying on our physical well-being,
lip-smacking snacks can turn us into someone we don’t want to be and
seriously affect our personal relationships – which in turn
affects our health. Food and love, it would appear, have more in common
than you might think.
“It works like this,” says relationship
expert Gary Smalley, author of The Amazing
Connection Between Food and Love (Tyndale House,
2001). “Our food choices affect our emotional health; our emotional
health affects our relationships; our relationships affect our physical
health; and our emotional and physical health affect our food
choices.”
Smalley, founder of the Smalley Relationship Center in
Missouri and a professional family counsellor for more than 35 years, waged
a war with excessive weight gain. He remembers the frustration of being
unable to control his eating habits and the effect on relationships with
family and friends. He also recalls the freedom he felt when he finally
conquered the problem.
After sifting through reams of data from scientific
studies, Smalley pinpointed four common food choices as the worst culprits
in harming a person’s physical and emotional well-being: White or
refined sugar, white or refined flour, hydrogenated oils and animal fat,
and chemically laden foods.
The latter come disguised as sweet treats, pre-packaged
goodies made from refined sugar or refined flour, deep-fried delectables,
and store-bought foods with an unrecognizable ingredient list.
While those food choices might tingle the tastebuds,
Smalley says they can affect brain chemicals, which in turn causes specific
emotional changes. “When we’re moody or grouchy or depressed or
sleepy or whatever, our relationships and eventually our physical health
are affected,” he says.
How so? When we don’t feel loveable, it’s
difficult to allow others to love us or express love to them. We tend to
isolate ourselves, leaving relationships weak and ourselves feeling lonely.
Unfortunately, when we find a gaping hole in our emotional or physical
tank, we try to patch it with cheap fixes. Extra-marital affairs, alcohol,
drugs, or even . . . a doughnut and a cup of liquid caffeine. The cycle
continues like a crazed merry-go-round.
Is there any hope of breaking that cycle? Absolutely.
Help is just a prayer away. “When a person struggles in any area of
their life, whether it be food or attitudes or any human behaviour at all,
and finally realizes he can’t change on his own, he simply has to
(figuratively) wave his arms toward God and yell,
‘Help!’” says Smalley.
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“God rescues those who cry out to him.”
Smalley cites a personal experience to illustrate that point.
“Several years ago I almost drowned in
Mexico,” he says. “I was being swept out to sea in an undertow.
I fought and fought to swim back to shore; but the more I fought, the
weaker I became. I went down about three times, bounced on the sand, and
pushed myself above the water – where I could wave my hands to anyone
who could see me. I probably had only 60 seconds left.
“Suddenly a lifeguard saw me, threw out a float
with a rope attached, and jerked me to shore. He saved my life.
That’s the way God works: we admit our helplessness, cry out for help
and he rescues us.”
Smalley also stresses that God created us as relational
beings. He wants our deepest emotional needs to be met in a personal
relationship with him – because that’s the most fulfilling
relationship we’ll ever have, whether we’re single or married.
He wants us to enjoy healthy associations with those around us, too.
Because he wants these good things for us, he’s more than willing to
help us make the necessary changes.
But what about the nitty-gritty of overhauling our
grocery lists? By being informed, we can learn to select natural foods, as
opposed to convenient processed foods containing chemical additives.
We can use honey or sweeteners from raw fruit, rather
than sugar. Replace refined flour with whole-grain flour, and whole grains
such as flax, brown rice and oats. Substitute animal fat and hydrogenated
oils for cold-pressed oils such as olive oil and soybean oil, avocados and
peanut butter. Swap packaged foods for natural foods: raw veggies and
fruits, lean meats, beans, nuts and seeds.
So, go ahead. Make a few changes in that menu, then
party hearty. You’ll enjoy improved physical health, weight loss,
healthier interpersonal relationships – and stronger self-esteem
and emotional well-being. It’s well worth the effort.
Grace Fox is national co-director for International
Messengers Canada, and author of Moving from
Fear to Freedom: A Woman’s Guide to Peace in Every Situation. www.gracefox.com
October 2008
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