Is it a sin to be fat? Protect us, Lord, from the chips and the chocolate! Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, it's true. So when does the food that gives us sustenance and pleasure become a spiritual obstacle?

FIVE POUNDS. THAT'S HOW MUCH I GAINED OVER THE holidays last winter. Oh well. I figured I'd work it off by summer. Besides, it was just normal participation in the holiday spirit--socially accepted gluttony, all committed in the name of the Incarnation.

The association between food and celebration is as old as human history. It is profoundly nourishing when body and spirit are both fed in the context of a communal ritual. When eating and celebrating stop, we shrivel and die. Or, in the words of Auntie Marne: "Life's a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!"

So what happens when our meals are super-sized and food is made the focus of the banquet of life? If we attempt to fill our deepest hungers only by eating, can the craving of our spirit truly be filled? America's collective weight suggests that our bodies are burdened with extra pounds while our souls often go hungry. In fact, much of the eating that makes us fat occurs in isolation. Furtive trips to the refrigerator. Solitary snacking. Eating separated from its social context. Banquet without community. Ritual replaced by compulsion.

It's hard to imagine Valentine's Day without a red velvet box of chocolates, and even harder to imagine eating only one piece. And where would we put the candles if we didn't have birthday cakes? Thanksgiving, with its image of pumpkin pie and whipped cream, is just a prelude to the thoughts of sugarplums that will dance in our heads by December 25. Halloween is hardly about honoring the hallowed dead anymore but about donning costumes and collecting candy.

In fact, we have replaced the real symbolism of many of our holidays, both secular and religious, with food. Thanksgiving is "Turkey Day." Sugar-coated bunnies and baskets of colorful candies point us toward Easter. The most recognized symbol of Christmas is a man in a red suit--a fat man. Still, our calorie-laden holiday celebrations often leave us feeling empty--and eating to fill the void.

Maybe that is why 65 percent of U.S. adults are now classified as overweight or obese. Compare this to 3 percent of Okinawans. We are among the fattest people in the world, and getting fatter by the spoonful. Studies show that children in the United States are gaining weight right along with their parents--so much so that obesity has been declared an epidemic among them.

So is this a sin or a health crisis? Most certainly, the real questions run deeper. Does being a Christian have any implications for how we use food? Does it offer any guidance about how we should treat our bodies? And are there any social justice issues related to our consumption?

AS BELIEVERS, WE CLAIM THAT WE ARE IMAGO Dei--made in God's image: "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27).

This means that there is divinity in us, a spark of the holy. Our humanness is permeated with this divine mystery. So is every little cell in our bodies. Even our fat cells.

The entire Judeo-Christian tradition is predicated on the belief that human beings are icons of the divine, images of the compassionate God of the cosmos. Christianity's central tenet is the Incarnation: God becoming flesh, entering the human and embracing every part of what it means to be born, to grow, to struggle, to love, to eat and drink, and to die. According to Pauline theology, our bodies are temples of a Spirit that is holy. Our flesh houses God.

It would seem that our traditional understanding of gluttony and sloth would be out of bounds for the serious Christian. So should willfully clogging our arteries with partially hydrogenated oil, overwhelming our delicately balanced energy systems with excess sugar, and pumping up our fat cells to the bursting point. None of these behaviors would seem to honor the Incarnation that seeks expression in each of us.

So, is it really a sin to be fat? Perhaps the first response is to regard the very question as judgmental and refrain from answering it. After all, why single out fat people? We might just as readily ask if it's a sin to be anorexic, bulimic, or to do anything to one's body that intentionally deforms, degrades, or mistreats it. And what about being part of the multibillion dollar advertising media that entices teenage girls with Barbie-like images of the perfect female body--the latter of which adds greed to the list of potential sins? Should those media moguls be standing in the Reconciliation line?

Still, the frightening statistics on obesity compel us to deal with the question--not only from a medical perspective but from a spiritual one. We are entrusted with our bodies. We are called, as Christians, to tend to our flesh, to treat it well, to protect it. We are, each of us, little chapels carrying within us the sacred energies of the universe. What would keep us from being sacristans of such a holy place?

There are, of course, many reasons for obesity that have nothing to do with sin: genetics, medications, medical conditions, abuse, stress, the poverty that forces people to live on cheap, calorie-dense food. But studies tell us that these account for only a small percentage of America's excess girth. Most obesity in the United States results from eating too much and exercising too little.

So now for the really hard question, the only one I can legitimately ask without judging others: If I am fat (and getting fatter) because I eat too much and spend my free time watching TV, should I be worried about the state of my soul? Have the rarely mentioned sins of gluttony and sloth slipped into my lifestyle while I was finishing those last few chips in the Pringles can? If so, does my Baptism, as well as my health, invite me to make some lifestyle changes?

JESUS DIDN'T GIVE US a RESTRICTED EATING PLAN OR AN exercise program. The closest thing to "South Beach" in his day was the place where the Jordan River flowed out of the Sea of Galilee--not a low-carb diet. Nor was Jesus hesitant to celebrate. The gospel stories are rich in imagery involving wedding feasts, Passover meals, and picnics on hillsides. He invited himself to dinner at the homes of surprised hosts, allowed his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath, and urged his followers to expand the guest list at banquets. The criticism he endured for enjoying a good party is legendary: "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard ...'" (Matt. 11:18-19).

It seems that for Jesus the real issue around food was not that average people were mistreating their bodies by eating too much or exercising too little. Rather, it had to do with hypocrisy and the misuse of power. There was an uneven distribution of resources. Those few who controlled the resources had too much, while the masses struggled to provide enough food for themselves and their families.

This is where our own choices around food connect to social justice. To what extent does how I eat reflect my belief in the mystery of imago dei--my own and that of my brothers and sisters around the world?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church understands serious sin as requiring grave matter, full knowledge, and complete consent. The consequence of sin, whatever level of gravity, is the wounding of our capacity to practice charity in our hearts. Sin makes us selfish. It gradually turns us away from one another and from God--and from our truest, best selves.

Since obesity is known to affect self-esteem, it is reasonable to assume that it can wound our capacity to practice charity toward ourselves. Few portly Catholics consider ordering a Big Mac and double fries a matter sufficiently grave to separate them from God or to destroy the vital principle of charity in their hearts. But should they?

Is it a sin to be fat and getting fatter? Ultimately the answer to the question resides between each of us and God. But relationship is always the test of the presence or absence of sin: Do my food choices honor my incarnational reality--my body's right to be healthy and well tended? Does the amount that I eat reflect a conscious respect for my place on the earth, a globe I share with more than 6 billion of God's other hungry sons and daughters? Does my eating, playing, resting, and exercising enable me to be kinder, more compassionate, more involved in the issues related to social justice? Does it give me energy to care?

These are probably the more important questions. The weight of our bodies, after all, is not a measure of the largeness of our hearts. But our hearts live in our bodies. Our flesh is their home. And we are the caretakers of this sacred residence.

Advance copies of Sounding Board are mailed to a sample of U.S. CATHOLIC subscribers. Their answers to questions on the topic of this article and a representative selection of their comments follow in Feedback.

By FRAN FERDER, F.S.P.A., an author, speaker, and clinical psychologist in Seattle. She is the co-author with Father John Heagle of Tender Fires: The Spiritual Promise of Sexuality (Crossroad).