This N.E.W. LIFE Booklet is the sixth in a 7-volume companion series to the N.E.W. LIFE (Nutrition, Exercise, Wellness for LIFE): Biblical Support for Health and Freedom from Bondage to Food and Diets book (Chapter 9). There are 7 N.E.W. LIFE Booklets which coincide with the chapters in the N.E.W. LIFE book. Each booklet reinforces excerpts from the N.E.W. LIFE book and introduces insightful questions to support the process of healing from underlying issues that drive out-of-balance eating behaviors. The N.E.W. LIFE Booklets may be used by individuals or in a fellowship group setting to facilitate discussion.

For most people, diets don't work. What's worse, many people find themselves in the diet trap after restrictive dieting causes a loss of muscle, lower metabolic rate and weight-regain as fat, and emotional and physical feelings of deprivation that result in rebound overeating. Furthermore, diets do not address the underlying emotional issues that drive overeating in many people. For most people diets fail to deliver the results they promise and the person feels like a failure.

And if that typical cycle isn't de-motivating enough, weight-loss does not necessarily translate into better health. In fact, dieting can actually be harmful to health. Accumulating evidence shows that yo-yo dieting does more harm than good-many dieters actually increase their risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and earlier mortality whereas normal weight-gain with age does not. Other consequences of yo-yo dieting include increased risk for osteoporosis, gallbladder disease, breast and kidney cancer, abnormally low levels of female reproductive hormones and an epidemic of eating disorders.

Overweight is not the problem, overeating is. In our obsession to blame weight for disease we lose sight of the real culprits--lack of activity, fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods and high animal and processed (trans) fat in the diet. A diet mentality does not lead to changed desires or permanent weight-loss. The solution is to take the focus off of weight-loss and put it on behavior change instead, and allow the Holy Spirit to sanctify and lead to freedom from dieting and overeating.

This N.E.W. LIFE Booklet includes a review of the extremely flawed studies and arbitrary decisions involved in the weight standards developed by the insurance industry, medical community and exercise scientists, and the body fat studies and what they actually concluded. The information is shocking. It will definitely make you think. And that is where behavior change begins.