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The Christianity Today women’s blog provides news and analysis from the perspective of evangelical women. We cover news stories and books related to international justice and evangelism, pregnancy and sexual ethics, marriage, parenting, and celibacy, pop culture, health and body image, raising girls, and women in the church and parachurch.
Her.meneutics was co-founded by Katelyn Beaty and Sarah Pulliam Bailey.
August 31, 2012 9:13 AM
The first time I admitted to myself that I had an eating disorder, I was eating raw spinach straight out of the container. As I wondered how many calories it contained—10, to be precise—and how long I would have...
August 13, 2012 10:57 AM
The Old Testament book Song of Songs is pretty racy. And not infrequently, its sexual imagery is expressed through food metaphors: As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men....
May 31, 2012 11:46 AM
When people find out that I write about food, they frequently assume that I’m either about to pronounce judgment on what they eat, or that I’m about to dispense dietary wisdom. In fact I’m a bit of a dietary antinomian....
April 4, 2012 8:47 AM
Manhattan socialite Dara-Lynn Weiss’s essay in the April issue of Vogue touched off yet another Internet skirmish, part mommy war, part diet war, with cries of child abuse, accusations involving recipes for eating disorders, and of course, the inevitable book...
September 29, 2011 10:44 AM
A number of recent studies have confirmed what we’ve intuitively understood all along: Eating with others keeps us healthier, happier, and better connected to each other. Even so, shared meals — especially ones at home — have been on the...
September 27, 2011 11:30 AM
So, one million moms are up in arms over “Schweddy Balls,” the, uh, gutsy, name of Ben and Jerry’s newest flavor: rum-flavored vanilla ice cream adorned with fudge-covered malt balls. One would think such an unsavory name for something that...
September 14, 2011 9:40 AM
While eating for optimal health and weight loss has been an American obsession for at least 100 years, the past decade has seen growth of a different kind of awareness; a food movement comprising culinary, agricultural, ethical, and environmental concerns....
August 10, 2011 9:25 AM
The first time my daughter grabbed a box of cookies out of the pantry, flipped the package round and round, and asked me how many calories were in each one, I laughed it off. “I don’t know,” I said....
June 8, 2011 11:05 AM
A move to Spokane, Washington, in the summer of 2004 brought many expected changes to our young family of four. There was a new call to pastor a congregation, new schools, a new house. But our home’s ready-to-harvest vegetable garden...
May 13, 2011 10:54 AM
We live in a culture obsessed with food. Eating disorders, once the exclusive terrain of adolescent girls, plague populations as diverse as older adults, Orthodox Jewish women, and young men. On the other hand, the nation as a whole is...
April 1, 2011 10:30 AM
Amelia Brown, principal of the William D. Kelley School in Philadelphia, recently called on parents and Operation Town Watch Integrated Services (which helps neighborhoods fight crime and drug deals) to position themselves strategically around corner stores around the school. Their...
March 15, 2011 10:41 AM
There’s a long history behind Lysa Terkeurst’s bestseller, Made to Crave, recently out from Zondervan. All jokes about “Calorie Baptist Church” and attendance-boosting potlucks aside, American evangelicals have long worried about weight, health, and food. Early writers of Christian...
February 15, 2011 4:52 PM
Where do you exercise? Your basement? Your backyard? Your gym? Your church? Browsing the list of weekly programs offered at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, fitness classes and weight-loss support groups are now listed alongside baptism and leadership training classes. Warren...
November 24, 2010 10:00 AM
A few years ago, my husband and I were waiting for our dinner to arrive in a Thai restaurant, when a movement at the next table caught my eye. An older couple was finishing up their meal. The man was...
September 10, 2010 10:22 AM
Harriet Brown’s new memoir, Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia, challenges popular beliefs about eating disorders. Many psychologists and nutritionists say that getting anorexics to eat won’t work until “underlying psychological issues” are dealt with, yet many anorexics...
August 12, 2010 8:15 AM
After finally reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s enormously popular 2006 memoir, Eat Pray Love, I could write an entire review about any one of these observations: (1) The story embodies everything wrong with bourgeois Western spirituality: it’s self-centered, consumerist, and privileged without...
June 16, 2010 10:00 AM
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is Barbara Kingsolver’s captivating account of a year spent eating only homegrown and locally raised food. Known best for The Poisonwood Bible, her 1998 novel about Christian missionaries in the Congo, Kingsolver...
March 30, 2010 9:51 AM
Last night’s sunset marked the beginning of Passover for millions of people worldwide. It is the only major Jewish holiday recognized by most mainstream calendars and celebrated by the U.S. President. Although the Jewish holiday lasts all week, until sunset...
March 16, 2010 2:20 PM
If a daily trip to the vegetable patch to harvest vegetables and to the chicken coop to gather eggs means a woman is a femivore, then so be it, though I think the term is rather silly. Historically speaking, folks...
March 2, 2010 10:26 AM
As President Obama presided over a seven-hour cross-party debate on health care last week, First Lady Michelle Obama continued to make headlines in the advancement of her latest cause: childhood obesity. In an historic appearance at the annual winter meeting...
February 17, 2010 9:44 AM
As one of the 40 percent of Americans who makes New Year’s resolutions, in January I started going to a local gym three times a week. Wanting to stay active during Chicago’s long winter, I soon saw those lectures about...
July 24, 2009 9:03 AM
"What are you building?" the cashier asked as we paid for several sheets of plywood and some 2×4s. When we told her she said, "a lot of people are building chicken coops this summer." City ordinances are changing to allow...
May 15, 2009 11:35 AM
Years of women being taught to develop a positive body image may actually be hurting them. A recent study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology surveyed 81 Philadelphia-area women who fell along all points on the body mass...
May 4, 2009 8:43 AM
This is going to sound odd, but I have fond memories of receiving WIC benefits as a young mother. For about two years, I gratefully took advantage of both Medicaid and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants...