Christians should wake up to the junk food problem

In First Peter we are told to “Be sober and vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) In today’s world, what does it mean to be sober and vigilant in the way that this verse urges? One way in which this verse is interpretable is as an injunction to eliminate sinful or pseudo-sinful influences from our lives. A lot of Christians, with good reason, have focused in recent years on eliminating the culture’s cheap sexual junk. They have (rightfully) sought to separate themselves from free sex that is being peddled everywhere through television and the internet.

But another area of excess where we also could separate ourselves from the culture is junk food influences. I was noticing the other day just how prevalent ‘gastro-porn’ is in our media-driven world. Think of the way that fast food advertisements zoom in for close-up shots of burgers. The shot pans around the whole burger and then it focuses on one morsel of meat, bathed in sauce and separating in slow motion from the rest of the patty, tomato, lettuce and bun as the camera rolls. A piped-in voice moans as if in a food orgasm, and we are told that we deserve to indulge ourselves in our deepest desires. My first reaction to food advertising like this is always a food appetite surge. I get hungry and soon I’ll be irritable if I don’t follow the ad with a tasty meal.

But in recent months I’ve been feeling the pull of another, second-order voice in my head. That voice has been telling me that the junk food advertising I’ve just been seeing is messing with my subconscious desires, and that I should pause before giving in. As a Christian, my suspicion is that that second-order voice is my conscience, informed by the Holy Spirit. In our current cultural climate there are almost no restraints on our food indulgences, even in church circles. So for Christians it is imperative that we cultivate that voice of the Holy Spirit, to provide us with a way of escape when we are facing food temptations.

Christians have (rightly) been trying for decades now to keep our decadent culture from sliding into further sexual excesses. But something else that is nearly as damaging, and that has not yet been adequately recognized by Christians, is the slide of our culture into greater and greater food indulgences. It’s time for Christians to wake up to the realities of food excess, our own appetitive desires, and the joys of a more moderate lifestyle. Junk food will only rule our lives if we let it. It’s time for Christians to wake up to the problem of junk food. We Christians can say no to it, just like so many of us have said no to the culture’s sexual excesses.