Born Again BodiesFlesh and Spirit in American Christianity

Abstract

“Fat People Don't Go to Heaven!” screamed a headline in the tabloid Globe in November 2000. The story recounted the success of the Weigh Down Workshop, the nation's largest Christian diet corporation and the subject of extensive press coverage from Larry King Live to the New Yorker. In the United States today, hundreds of thousands of people are making diet a religious duty by enrolling in Christian diet programs and reading Christian diet literature such as What Would Jesus Eat? and Fit for God. Far ranging in its implications, and full of stories of real people, this book launches an investigation into Christian fitness and diet culture. Looking closely at both the religious roots of this movement and its present-day incarnations, the author analyzes Christianity's intricate role in America's obsession with the body, diet, and fitness. As she traces the underpinning of modern-day beauty and slimness ideals—as well as the bigotry against people who are overweight—she links seemingly disparate groups in American history including seventeenth-century New England Puritans, Progressive Era New Thought adherents, and late-twentieth-century evangelical diet preachers.

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