Saturday 19th November

Oh, you deadliest of sins, Gluttony – indeed, which is different from Greed, which comes later. And the next town of Anna and her sister the dancer Anna’s journey was Philadelphia, though again why that city should be singled out for such a sin I have no idea.

Gluttony; one wonders historically if this was such a common sin; maybe amongst the rich, especially when one reads about late Victorian and Edwardian banquets, where every variety of cooked and cold meats and pies and puddings were in abundance, and the rich rarely worked either, so over-eating and obesity must have been quite common, in any case gout (supposedly brought on by good living) was commonplace.  The poor, of course, would have mostly been thin.  And in Asia and several developing countries, being fat is automatically associated with wealth; the fatter, the richer, the better seems to be the motto, but as this may be classed as social eating rather than Gluttony as a vice in itself, maybe we can excuse it.

Nowadays the poor are often the fat ones, though whether this is really down to Gluttony or to ignorance and the plethora of cheap and nasty fatty foods promoted by the food industry is debatable.  Personally, I think that there is always a degree of personal choice involved, and after all these “fatties” did not become fat overnight, did they never look in the mirror and realize they were putting on a few pounds, were scales never around in their houses?  Or am I being too simplistic; luckily enough I have never been prone to putting on much weight, and I do walk every day and don’t own a car, so they might also be factors.

But I am amazed at the vast quantities people actually eat, sometimes when we are out in a restaurant one wonders just where they put it all, especially on help-yourself buffets, where some people just load up their plate with everything going.  And this is perhaps the real Gluttony, those who are not hungry or poor, but who eat out of love of food, for eating’s sake, as if food itself were a rarity, or might be taken away from them if they don’t put away everything in sight.  As a child one had to finish everything on one’s plate, but then our parents were sensible and didn’t spoil us or overfill our platters, also I was never given a whole chocolate bar, or a bag of sweets to eat on my own. “Share and share alike” we were taught, and so we learnt not to overindulge, not to spoil ourselves, not to succumb to Gluttony.

Actually I think the Gluttons needs our sympathy, they must be quite unhappy if they feel the desperate need to keep eating, there must be something else they are really lacking, most probably self-love and self-respect, and because they are inevitably overweight then that becomes another consoling reason to overeat.  But a little bit of self control wouldn’t go amiss, surely.