Thinking about it daily
March 17, 2008 (Monday)
As I surfed the TV, I came upon the Animal Planet TV Channel, and saw an elephant eating what looked like a very small tree. I guess it was a bush of some kind. I heard the voiceover say, “these elephants eat 300 pounds of food per day.” What? Even I don’t eat that much. Let’s see. Three hundred pounds per day, 365 days per year — almost 110,000 pounds of food per year! (Elephants can eat up to 440 pounds per day and they drink nearly 60 gallons of water per day).
Erma Bombeck’s articles in the newspaper always made great reading. Recently I saw a quotation from one of them, in which she wrote: “What we’re really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?“
We joke about eating a lot, and failing to exercise, but the end result is obesity. Obesity is on the increase in our country, particularly in our area of the country. Serious medical problems are a direct result of obesity. By several standards I have read about, I am obese. I do not wear my rings anymore, because the body fat is distributed throughout my body, but fat’s favorite place is around my mid section. Since returning to Houston, I have resumed a regular schedule of walking with my friend, Leroy, ten years older than I, and a much faster walker. He is lean but not mean. I guess I am neither.
It seems to me that we Christians have an additional incentive to take good care of our own bodies, and it is this Scripture: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price..” (1 Cor. 6:19-20a). It’s something to think about, every day.