A Plague of Plenty

A recent British study reports, “About a fifth of all adults around the world and a third of those in the UK will be obese by 2025” (The Guardian, April 1, 2016). With obesity comes a host of health-related issues: diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, joint problems, cancer, shortened life span. According to the study, “The English speaking world is particularly badly affected… Almost a fifth of the world’s obese adults… live in just six high-income English-speaking countries—Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the US” (ibid.).

Long ago, God told the Israelite people they would be blessed if they obeyed His laws, but disobedience would bring consequences: “if you do not obey the voice of the LORD… The LORD will make the plague cling to you… The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation… The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed” (Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 15, 21-22, 27). Few today understand the biblical injunction that we are to glorify God in our bodies” by obeying the physical laws that promote health. To learn more, see Biblical Principles of Health.