Heather Creekmore tackles the issue of food idolatry and how it relates to body image. Idolatry is a tricky topic, and many women who wrestle the body image idol may secretly desire to label food as an idol too. Heather asks listeners to carefully consider several questions in the form of an “idols test” to see where if food is really their idol, or if it’s something else.
Here are some key topics covered in today’s episodes:
- Introduction to body image idolatry among women
- Discussion on how women may shift their focus from body image to food as an idol, especially for those with eating disorders
- Link between food as an idol and the desire to improve one’s body
- Heather Creekmore’s suggestion to consider what one cannot live without beyond physiological needs
- The potential confusion around food being on the idol list
- Discussion on fear around food and the topic of gluttony
- Heather Creekmore’s personal experience with disordered eating and society’s influence on food habits
- Fear of losing something being an indicator of an idol
- Determining the difference between physiological need and food idolatry
- Lack of understanding about the physiological effects of restriction and disordered eating
- Idea that finding satisfaction in food is not bad, but ultimate satisfaction cannot be found in it
- Discussion on spending a lot of time thinking about food and potential physiological connection.
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Transcript of Today’s Show: Is Food Really Your Idol?
Heather Creekmore [00:02:59]:
Hey there, friend. I’m glad you’re here for this important conversation about food. Now, I’m going to be gentle and real here as I talk about my experience with food and this concept of idolatry, but I want to lay out some bigger-picture parameters. The first, thing one, there is lots of fear around food, and so if you’re on a body image journey, like, I see that, I know that. I get that, and a lot of the fear, especially if you’ve been in church a long time, centralizes on this concept of gluttony. And we’re going to talk about gluttony in the next episode because that’s something I’ve been meaning to talk about for a long time, too. So we’re just going to get all the stuff I’ve been meaning to talk about out this summer, but I didn’t know personally that I had an eating disorder or a disordered relationship with food or disrupted normal or disrupted healthy relationship with food.
Heather Creekmore [00:04:24]:
I didn’t recognize any of those things in myself, mostly because I was eating, like most everyone around me was eating, and I was following the food trends like most everyone around me was following. And so because it was, quote-unquote, my “normal” in the circles I was in, in the family I was brought up in, I had no idea that this wasn’t actually normal. And friend, I have a feeling if you’re listening to this show, if you struggle with your body image, it might be the same for you. It may be that maybe until you started listening to this show, you never even considered the fact that always going from food plan to food plan or restricting certain foods and then adding them back and restricting other food, or maybe you never even considered that that wasn’t what is healthiest or best for your body. We have been programmed by culture to believe that this is what’s best for our body. So there is no shame, guilt, or condemnation at all. My friends, I think we’ve all been duped, literally duped in all this. And my eyes have been slow to open.
Heather Creekmore [00:05:40]:
I wrote my body image book, Compared to Who?, which actually may be on sale on Kindle. I’m begging my publisher to put it for $0.99 this month. So go check and see if Compared To Who? has dropped to $0.99 on Kindle. But when I wrote that book, it came out in 2017. I wrote the book in 2015. Says eight years ago when I wrote that book, god had not even started to touch my relationship with food yet. I was still very much a disordered eating maybe even in some degree, to some degree, actually in a full blown eating disorder when I wrote that book. So if you’re here, you’re like, hey, I’m here for the body image stuff.
Heather Creekmore [00:06:19]:
This food stuff is a little uncomfortable. I feel you there too. I’m so glad you’re here. And I never want you to be turned off by where I’m at in my journey. I just want you to have an understanding that I give you so much grace for wherever you are starting in this journey to body image freedom. And if that doesn’t include food yet, that is totally cool. I get it. But here’s what I want you to know.
Heather Creekmore [00:06:45]:
When we talk about body image idolatry, most of the women I talk to about this really don’t want body image to be their idol. They really want food to be their idol. And I get it, like I did too, right? Because if food is your idol, then you kind of have a spiritual reason to ignore it or restrict it or do more controlling things with it, right? If you have an eating disorder, disorder eating mindset, even a chronic dieting, again, like, this is a really broad category. Most of us who have followed what the influencers tell us to do with our food have some sort of disordered mindset. And so if you have any touch of that, chances are your hope is that food will be an idol. Or maybe like me, your hope is that you’ll have some food allergy or food sensitivity so you can give up certain foods. And the reason for all that is so it will help your body friends. I think most of you, when I talk to you, most people listen to the show, food is probably not the idol, but I don’t want to just leave it there and be like, okay, food’s not your idol.
Heather Creekmore [00:08:10]:
And believe me, no, I have an idol test and it’s actually going to be in my book that comes out this December. 40 day body imagery sets coming out this December, and I have this idol test in there and I have food idol on the list right now, although I’m thinking about taking it off because I’m afraid it might be confusing. But for right now, food is on that list. And so what we’re going to do today is we are just going to go through this diagnostic test to tell whether or not food is your idol. Now, before preparing this episode, I decided to do a little googling to see what I could find on the interwebs about food being an idol. And I have to tell you, I was a little frustrated with what I found because I found some big name pastors, some Christian leaders whom I really respect and with whom I agree with about like 99% of almost everything they preach. Like, yes, I am right there with you. Like, I see you’re handling the word of God in what I consider to be a wise way.
Heather Creekmore [00:09:16]:
And I have so much respect for these people. And yet I feel like when they’re talking about this issue, they’re either not understanding how influenced their perspective has been by I’m going to say diet culture, but by these messages coming at us from culture about what health looks like and all these things, right? How dieting is normal. And I don’t think that there’s an understanding of what dieting and restriction and what any type of disordered relationship with food actually does to our body physiologically. And so I found one of these, Pastors John Piper, he got the question from someone like, how do I know food is my idol? And he answered the question by saying, you know, food is your idol if you’re a glutton. And then he goes on to describe gluttony. And like I said, we’re going to talk about this in the next episode. So come back and we’ll dig into that. But I don’t think that that is a good enough answer for the category of women that I am in and that maybe you’re into because if you have ever restricted, then there’s a part of your physiology that makes all of this weird.
Heather Creekmore [00:10:36]:
Now, if you’re a person who’s never restricted food in your life, then this might not apply to you. But friends, to the varying degrees that we have a disordered relationship with food, it makes all of this really tricky. Okay, so we’re going to go to commercial break real quick, and then when we come right back, we’re going to go through these questions and you can answer them. I’ll try to give you a little bit of space. You can answer them and find out if food is your idol. Okay, let’s dig into these questions. The first question for the idle test is what can I not live without? Now, food is really tricky with this one because you actually cannot live without food. Okay? So if this was the end of the idol test, we would all come out as food idolatry because, yes, you have to have food, but it’s deeper than that.
Heather Creekmore [00:11:32]:
Let’s take this again beyond the physiological, what can I not live without? Now, let’s talk about your body. Can you if you’re someone who has a smaller body, can you not live without maintaining that certain size? Or is it that you cannot live without the hope of someday achieving a certain size? Right. And then the question becomes, how does food relate to these two goals? Is food really the idol or is it the body goal that is the idol? Okay, so we’re going to go past that one quickly because of course, you can’t live without food, but the second one has a physiological complication to it as well. The second question is what do I spend most of my time thinking about? Now listen, friends, I spent most of my life thinking about food but not because it was an idol, because I was hungry. Our bodies were designed to eat. Our brains were designed to make sure that we do. And so if you are restricting food, if you are not eating enough of any, even within food categories, if you’re not getting enough carbohydrates or you’re not getting enough protein or fat, your body is going to talk to you about it. And so you may spend most of your time thinking about food, but that might not be idolatrous.
Heather Creekmore [00:13:10]:
That might be hunger. And hunger is not idolatrous. Hear me again. Hunger is not idolatrous. Okay? Now, is there a way that you could be fantasizing about food that is idolatrous? Okay, let me lay out some parameters. If you are well fed, okay, if you’ve never restricted food in your life, you eat whatever you want, whenever you want all the time. You’re not really worried about what food does to your body. Your relationship with food has never been disrupted by restriction, dieting, any of those things.
Heather Creekmore [00:13:45]:
You’re never counting things like if none of that has ever been part of your story. And let’s say you’re a real foodie, right, and what you find is you fantasize a lot about the next thing you’re going to eat. Again, not from a place of hunger, you’re well fed, you’ve been eating all day long and you’re still thinking about food, then perhaps you are looking for some sort of ultimate satisfaction from food instead of from Jesus, the source of our ultimate satisfaction. But again, this is so tricky physiologically because even my dietitian friends would say, okay, but are you satisfied in your food relationship all day long? Because if you’re like, I don’t know, back in the day we see like rice cakes and just really gross tasting stuff because it was diet and quote unquote, better for us. But if you’re eating plain salads without dressing all day long and you find yourself fantasizing about filet mignon or a really rich dessert, again, friend, that is physiological. That’s not idolatry. That’s your body saying, I’m not satisfied with what you’re feeding me. I do need some other satisfaction.
Heather Creekmore [00:14:59]:
And satisfaction is such a loaded word. I have a whole chapter in my new book that’s coming out in December on satisfaction because I think we as Christians have kind of subtly crossed the line into some sort of acidicism where we’re not supposed to be satisfied or like just maybe specifically in the area of food where it’s like, oh, it’s just super dangerous. If food is satisfying to me, that’s bad for my body if I like it. All of those kind of things, those are just messages that don’t line up with the Bible. There are verses in the Bible about God satisfying us in the same way, like the sweetness of honeywood and other food references where it is clear that scripture is not against us finding satisfaction in food. We just can’t find ultimate satisfaction in food. Okay, so the second question was what do I spend most of my time thinking about? Friend? I don’t know. I think you’re going to be hard pressed to say, yes, it’s food, and not connect that to something physiologically.
Heather Creekmore [00:16:00]:
But no, I’m going to leave you space to find your own answer. But that’s my leaning. Okay, this next one, what do I freely spend money on? Again, I feel like a broken record here, but again, you have to take the physiological side out of this. So it’s really interesting. This is going to be a personal story here that maybe is a little embarrassing for me, but it used to be really hard for me to check out of Target or the grocery store or any place without grabbing candy from the display that’s right there by checkout strategically. Like they know who their target audience is. It’s me. And I used to the time and so when I think about what do I freely spend money on, I would be like, yeah, I freely spend money on food, okay, food might be an idol or I’m in the grocery store and I see something and it’s like, oh, I love that thing.
Heather Creekmore [00:16:51]:
I have to have that thing and I buy it. And so I freely spend money on it without thinking, like the bark fins at costco. Anyone feel me there? Yeah, freely spend money on those. But I will tell you that a lot of that has changed for me, just even really in the last two years, because I’ve started kind of going down this intuitive eating path where I’m free with what I’m allowed. To eat and not restricting in any way trying not to do even mental restriction where I shame myself for eating things that I otherwise would have in previous years would have shamed myself. Like, oh, I can’t believe reading that. No, I’m free to eat whatever I want whenever I want. And the craziest thing is I don’t actually buy those things as much anymore.
Heather Creekmore [00:17:42]:
Every once in a while I’d be like, yeah, okay, we could use some dark chocolate in the house. I’m buying the bark thins and they’re on sale, so I’m going to freely spend money on it. But I really don’t do my bag of Eminems at checkout like I used to do almost every time. And then I’ll tell you what else I used to do. I used to hide the wrapper. Some of you all are wrapper hiders, but I’d buy that bag and I’d even hide the receipt sometimes because I was so embarrassed and like my husband has no interest in looking over the grocery receipt for our home and wouldn’t really care if I spent a dollar on a bag of Eminems. But I was so ashamed of that behavior. And now that I’m doing intuitive eating, I really don’t do that anymore.
Heather Creekmore [00:18:26]:
In fact, the other day I was kind of hungry and I was checking out of a store and I was like, oh, I think I’ll just should I grab something? And I was like, oh, that’s not really what I’m hungry for. That doesn’t even sound good right now. And I talked myself out of it. Not from a money standpoint necessarily, although candy is getting stinking expensive, but just from the standpoint of that, it’s not really what I want, so I don’t feel that compulsion to do it anymore. So what do I freely spend money on? So this is a tricky one. So let’s take the physiological aspect of it out. If you are not restricting in any way, if you’re not starving, if your body’s not hungry. And guys, let me just say again, it might take a while for you just to be honest with yourself about whether or not your body’s hungry, because most of us do not want to think of our bodies as being any hungrier.
Heather Creekmore [00:19:12]:
We would rather our bodies be less hungry because that feeds the disordered eating, eating disorder mindset like that kind of helps fuel our mental issues in this area. So we don’t want our bodies to be hungry. But if your body is legit hungry, if you’re restricting it is, just know that then maybe the question comes to food could be an idol if you are spending excessive amounts of money on it. So maybe this is like, I buy expensive gourmet meals all the time. This is what a majority of my income goes to. Or maybe majority might even be too broad. I am not afraid to spend a ton of money on expensive food just because I enjoy it and I like to savor it. And this is a lavish part of my life that is important to me.
Heather Creekmore [00:20:10]:
And then again, even then, there’s a line, right? Because there’s nothing sinful about going out and having a really nice dinner. I’m not trying to shame you. Like, I can’t believe you went out and had a really nice dinner when there’s people starving in Africa. Like, no, that’s not the right dichotomy, right? That’s never been the right question. And that’s condemnation, too. Holy Spirit doesn’t deal with us with condemnation. He deals with us with conviction. And so I would say you can ask him, like, okay, God, am I spending too much money on these expensive food? Like, do you want me to change something here or is it in order? Maybe you’re a wealthier person and spending a lot of money, which I would consider a lot of money on food, is not a lot of money in the scheme of your financials.
Heather Creekmore [00:20:56]:
And that’s okay, right? So this is a matter of the heart and the heart conviction. But I’m going to leave that one there for now. Okay. This next one I think is super important. It’s what do I fear losing the most? Okay, now this is the one where I’m going to get most. Yeah, and I mean that in the lovingest way, right? But this is the part of the idle test where maybe if you were able to squeak by on the others with a yes, this is the one where I’m probably going to get you to change your mind. Okay, what do I fear losing the most? Is the answer. Food.
Heather Creekmore [00:21:33]:
And I would say for me personally, your story could be different. For me personally, I was begging, hoping, praying that someone would tell me I couldn’t or shouldn’t eat certain things. In fact, when I was diagnosed with hashimoto’s and they said give up gluten, I was like, oh, praise God. I mean, I was sad. I’m like, oh, really? But at the same time, that disordered eating, that eating disorder part of my brain was like, yes, now I have a reason not to eat it. And this is going to make me thinner. This is going to help me meet my body goals. And I share that because as you may hear in the subtext of that story, what I was afraid of losing most was not brownies and cookies.
Heather Creekmore [00:22:20]:
What I was afraid of losing most was my body size and shape and food is what I connected most to maintaining my body size and shape. And so I believed that if I could find a way to either under the guise of medical condition, health or spiritual right? So some of you are like, I want a spiritual reason to give up food. I thought if I could give it a label that would help my disordered relationship with food, it would help me be better at that disordered relationship with food. Right? That’s so like weird thinking. But I know some of you can relate. I know you can. What do I fear losing the most when this really applies to an idol? It applies to so let’s talk about it in the realm of like the idol of money, right? Like if you’re most terrified of losing all your money on the stock market or having your bank account be drained, then that money is an idol. If you’re most afraid of losing your children or losing your marriage, then those things could be idol.
Heather Creekmore [00:23:31]:
What are you most afraid of losing? And friend, I would say if you’re most afraid of losing food, aside from physiological. Right, again, if we were in a famine, there would be some serious consequences. We would all be afraid of losing food. That is not idolatry. Okay? Idolatry is what are you really afraid of losing? And I think for most of us, the answer is I’m afraid of losing this body size, this body shape, this control over my body or this hope again, because not everyone listening has the body they want or desired or dreamed of, right? This hope that I could do things to have a certain body size or shape that would bring me joy and satisfaction. So that’s what do I fear losing the most. Okay, next question. What do I believe will bring me the most satisfaction? Now, I’ve had talks with some of you where you’re like, well, I have to have my treats.
Heather Creekmore [00:24:35]:
And oh, if you’ve listened to my episodes, my intuitive eating episodes, you’ll hear I’ve had a distorted relationship with chocolate for a very long time. I have to have my treats. I have to have my chocolate chips. I have to have my dark chocolate. Yes. But when I am honest with myself about this question, what do I believe will bring me the most satisfaction? The answer is never chocolate. Yeah, I have to have my treat. Yes, sometimes I have to have dessert.
Heather Creekmore [00:25:05]:
Although, honestly, that’s changing too. I shared about that in a recent intuitive eating call as I’ve been eating more intuitively and just eating what I’m hungry for when I’m hungry for it, I don’t have to have dessert all the time anymore. And my relationship with the chocolate chips has really improved. But do I believe that it will bring me the most satisfaction? No, I’ve never thought chocolate was going to bring me the most satisfaction. I felt a physiological need for it. Like, I’ve desired it, I’ve craved it. I’ve dreamt about it. I’ve been angry with family members if they finished it off when I wanted some, like all of those things.
Heather Creekmore [00:25:40]:
But I never thought it would bring me the most satisfaction. Now, my body image, this is where it gets real, friend. Did I believe that having a certain size or shape body would bring me satisfaction? Absolutely 100%. Did I believe that if I could just lose the weight, get the shape, get the tone, get the parts fixed, I would have ultimate satisfaction? Absolutely, 100%. Yes. My body image, my body size, that was the idol, not the food. Okay, this next one, what do I notice and admire about others the most? And in this I gave some examples. At least the way I wrote it in the book is do I notice their wealth? Do I notice their success? Do I notice their discipline?
Do I notice their bodies? Do I notice their marital status? Do I notice their food choices? And I’m going to clarify here, right, because some of you are going to say, yes, that’s me. What I notice most about others is how they eat. Food is my idol. No. Let me challenge you on that. Okay? Do you notice what everyone eats? So if a woman in a bigger body is eating a salad and I don’t know some other things, would you take note of that and be like, oh, I have food idolatry, because I’m noticing what everyone eats? Or is it the woman with the body size and shape and look that you want? Is she the one whose food you’re actually following? Because what’s underneath that friend is just the way food, we believe, connects to the way our bodies look. And again, that’s the body image idol. That is not a food idol.
Heather Creekmore [00:27:30]:
Now let me explain how this would look with other things. So what do I notice and admire most about others? If I’m always admiring people who are wealthy, maybe I’m always driving through the wealthy neighborhood. In Austin, we got several really wealthy neighborhoods and it’s hard not to drive through and be like, oh, what would it be like to have a house like that? Or what would it be like to live like that? That’s what that idolatry looks like. Like, OOH, I wish this was my life. OOH, I wish I could be like that right now. So if you’re admiring someone’s food choices, ask yourself, are you really admiring the food? Is food really the idol? Are you admiring the body consuming the food? And the quote unquote discipline perhaps that you’re believing it takes to consume that food or all of that is a kind of distorted mess of the body image idol. Last one. What types of mistakes? And that word is in quotation marks.
Heather Creekmore [00:28:31]:
Okay, because I’m not really mistakes, but what kind of things do you do that frustrate yourself? Does missing a workout frustrate you? Does being late for work frustrate you? Missing a friend’s birthday, feeling like you’re a bad spouse, like those kinds of things? What really gets under your skin? I don’t know how to make this question come out where food would be your idol. Because what I think will happen for most is the types of mistakes that you might make related to food. You are upset with yourself because of how you believe it will affect your body. The food mistake I made is I ate more than I wanted to of this delicious rich food, or I ate more carbohydrates than I wanted to, or I ate this at this time when I wasn’t going to. And those are the food mistakes that really get you riled up. And that’s not about food being an idol. Like, I guess if food were an idol, the mistake you’d have to make, I don’t know, would be like forgetting to eat or something. I don’t even know.
Heather Creekmore [00:29:40]:
It just doesn’t work. Right. But if you are really frustrated about missing a workout, then there’s probably some connection there to the body imaginal. Like, if you really get in your head over missing a friend’s birthday, like I said, that’s more maybe of an approval idol or wanting to be liked or fear of being disapproved of or fear of being perceived as disorganized or not a good friend. Those are different specific things that could connect to approval or people pleasing those kinds of things. Right. But I just don’t even know how to make this question work out where your answer would be a food idol. So next time we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about gluttony and I think you’re going to be.
Heather Creekmore [00:30:28]:
Really surprised by where we go in that conversation. It’s going to be really important. But hey, is food your idol? I don’t know. That’s my diagnostic test. Hopefully you worked through these answers. You can listen to it again and answer them all for yourself. But I think, my friend, there’s a much better chance that your body image is your idol, not your food. And I pray that you’ll sit with that this week.
Heather Creekmore [00:30:52]:
I pray that God will speak to you, that maybe he’ll use my words, but more so that he’ll speak to you directly and just encourage your heart that it’s okay. You haven’t done anything shameful or wrong around food. There’s no condemnation for those who love Jesus, right? He wants to help you with this, just like he helped me. No shame, no blame. Let’s just walk forward on a new path where we can identify the real sin. You see, I think the enemy gets in there and tries to tell us that food is our idol. And that’s just part of the eating disorder talking, right? I think the enemy capitalizes on that for a lot of us, and I just want to call it out today. He’s lying to you.
Heather Creekmore [00:31:36]:
He’s lying to you. It’s the body image that’s the idol. And if we can see it, confess it. God’s so faithful to forgive us of it and we can walk a new path to freedom. Well, thanks for listening. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living.
