Article December 3, 2018 Issue

The real scale of happiness

Wendy Margolese

Originally published in The Christian Science Monitor’s Christian Science Perspective column, June 28, 2018.

As a young teen, I did not think much about body image until a friend gifted me a diet book. Then I followed its advice, including notating everything I ate, as though it were sacred. However, this approach set me off on a roller coaster ride of happy and sad days, dictated by the bathroom scale.

This “scale of happiness” dogged my days for many years. One day, I realized I wished to be free of having my sense of happiness and self-worth dictated by my weight or food consumption. At this time, I was becoming a sincere student of Christian Science, so I turned to the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, for inspiration to help improve the way I was thinking about food and my self-image.

One story in the Bible particularly resonated with me: that of Daniel, who was held captive by a Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar (see Daniel, chap. 1). The king wanted to specially feed and educate a few chosen captives so they might be fitted to serve him in his court.

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