by Adrian Black

Created on: March 18, 2009   Last Updated: March 27, 2009

In order to say whether or not obese people are gluttons, we must first define what gluttony actually is. The word traditionally has referred to a religious vice from the Catholic faith defined by an inappropriate obsession and attitude towards food and the pleasure of eating. Many writers during the early eras of the Catholic Church set about defining gluttony.

One of the most famous was Saint Gregory the Great. These habits are also engaged by people who are not overweight or obese at all. A brief paraphrase of his teachings on the subject are: - Eating before mealtimes. - Eating things for the pleasure of tasting them. - Choosing sauce and seasonings to stimulate the pleasure of taste. - Eating more than you need to survive. - Being too eager to eat even when you're not overeating and are actually eating plain food. Are people who eat gourmet delicacies gluttons then for the simply joy of eating? According to the limited definition, they are.

The very thin wine and cheese conessouirs, the lovers of fine baking, the patrons of the French Laundry - according to the definition, they too are gluttons according to the truest notions of the word. While one could certainly argue that people are overweight in the biblical sense of gluttony, modern obesity has far different roots overall. Calling overweight people gluttons, aside from being slightly archaic, is somewhat inappropriate, if only because it places a religious moral judgement on them - but also because it's inaccurate at best. While it is true that many who range from mildly overweight to super morbidly obese engage in similar habits that have rendered them this way, the devil is in the details here, so to speak. People who are very obese or overweight often have enablers outside themselves who assist in them reaching their sizes. They do not act alone.

There are also many reasons why people are overweight. These include the ever-quickening lifestyle changes of many current societies, where increased consumption of food outside the home has become somewhat of a desirable status symbol. Those cultures that have avoided western (primarily American) food and habit changes tend to retain their health and low body size longer than their counterparts that abandon them for both trendiness and convienence.

Several people are also overweight because they eat from emotional issues, prompted by mental illness or past abuse. Self-abuse is also prevalent among all with eating disorders, regardless of extremes. It is very simple to say that obesity has one cause. The ugly truth is that many things contribute to rendering someone in the painful state of being overweight, and whether you've got the twenty pounds of "marriage creep" or you need to lose two-hundred, one thing is clear - you probably aren't that way because you were a sinner.

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