All Names Have Been Changed

Hi. My name is Suzie and I am 22 years old, and I have recently read your article:

Diet Quackery, Fat Acceptance,
and the Goddess Anorexia.
Or, How I Stopped Worrying
and Learned to Love The Bomb

And I need to say just a few things about this article. Yes, I must admit that I do agree with a lot of what you are saying. In fact, your comments on Weight Watchers had me rolling on the floor laughing! I have also been to those meetings, and yes, they basically make me sick! But anyway, I feel that I must get in contact with you after reading this article. Because, I too, have been overweight my whole life and trying to fix it with different excerises and diets. And finally, I found one. First Place. I know that you do not know how you stand with your religion, but I must say, I could not read your story and go another second without telling you the joy I have found in my Savior and Lord. I am not writing this for any reason except for the fact that I feel I need to. Not to cram religion down your throat or even diet and exercise for that matter: because I know that is the absolute worst way to get anything accomplished. And I am sure you
have gotten other emails along these same lines. But please, just hear me out. I am in the same boat as you, except for the fact that I did not stop believing in the one promise that will hold true no matter what...the promise of Jesus Christ and the promise that one day soon I will be in heaven praising my Master. The last thing that I need to say to you is that I am praying for you from here on out. And if you would like, please email me back and let me know how you feel about this letter. But I thought it may be comforting for you to know that I am praying for you. Thank you for your time, energy, and humor you put into this article.

Suzie

Hello!

Thank you for your very nice letter.

Unfortunately, I might not say what you want to hear. I am very glad you enjoyed my article. But you see, I am not simply a "non-religious person." I am, in fact, a professional atheist. They call me "Hellbound Alleee."

You see, the day that I realized that starvation diets were worthless and harmful was the day I realized that the most harmful thing in my life was letting others, real or believed, take the blame for my deciisions, and also, more importantly, relying on others to direct my life morally. The day I gave up nonsensical diets was the day I stopped hating my physical body--the body that I am told is unimportant and worthless in a life directed by the pursuit of meeting Jesus in heaven.

The bible teaches that human natire and earthly pursuits are parts of nature, and those are the things we should reject. We are supposed to focus on the shadowy reward we are told we will receive after death, as long as we continue to be very sorry for--not our sins, really--but being human. The fact that we are descended from Adam and Eve (a couple I do not believe existed, and of course, the fictional characters were not wicked at all) means that we deserve hell. That's just not right.

Some people would assume that I would go ahead and say "the body doesn't matter. It's what's in your 'heart' that matters." Balderdash. I am my body, and everything about me is part of my body. There is no part of me that floats around me like some kind of ghost, or lives caged insiide me, waiting to get out. I celebrate the life that I live, and there can be no dispute that it is my body that lives it, and enjoys it. Hating that body, for all its faults, can get me nowhere in this life that lasts for only a short while, and then ends. I intend to live it as well as I can.

That means I must reject the rejection of the physical, and the denigration of the human being as reprobate. My religion is the world, not anti-world. That world that includes cake--something good--and health and philisophical quackery--something bad.

I hope you understand this is nothing against you personally. It is only against a belief system that I think got it all wrong in the first place, then got out of hand. Then the kids get involved, and it sometimes is just too late. And that's too bad. But I understand how it feels to be full of something we think is love for Jesus. I just think that the love is misplaced, that's all. The love part is good, though.