Q: I read in a magazine that women are supposed to eat half of what their boyfriends or husbands eat, so I usually feel pressured to eat smaller portions than my husband eats, but he doesn’t eat very much. I was wondering what your thoughts are on that.
A: There is a great deal of “common wisdom” out there regarding eating and weight. It often sounds really good and reasonable. But most of it is generated by the “world system,” which is actually controlled by Satan. He’d like women to make constant comparisons between themselves and their husbands and then accuse themselves of “gluttony.” The truth is that we are designed to eat what we’re physically hungry for, not what some article tells us is a correct portion. For all you know, your husband’s metabolism is slower than yours. External rules will trap you into deprivation and eventual overindulgence. A combination of walking in the Spirit and responding to physical cues that tell you when you’re hungry, what you’re hungry for, and even how much you’re hungry for is the natural, God-given way to relate to food, although it often takes a couple of years for women to re-learn this, which they knew instinctively as small children but have un-learned because of the pervasive diet mentality of our culture.