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Eating competition contrary to SLU mission

Eating competition contrary to SLU mission

The school year is now in full swing, and campus activities have begun to expand the waistlines of our social calendars.  Thus, a note to the wise: Moderation and mindfulness is necessary to promote a healthy, well-rounded graduate.  One such event that needed careful consideration was the $250 Graduate Challenge.
On Sept. 9, Saint Louis University promoted The U’s student food challenge in that week’s issue.  The competition described a successful challenge as the complete consumption of the restaurant’s featured sandwich: The Graduate.

The Graduate is comprised of two beef patties, four strips of bacon, two chicken strips, a fried egg, chili, four cheeses, fried onion strings and cheese sauce.

Upon devouring this mammoth meal, the challenger is rewarded with a cash prize.

The event’s proceeds will be given to the SLU Center for Entrepreneurship scholarship fund.  At face value, this appears to be a simple novelty event, involving one of America’s growing “sports”- competitive eating, while raising funds for financially challenged students.

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Competitive eating has many critical claims that question the individual practice of said activities.

For instance, participants may experience threats to their personal health: cardiovascular related illness, spiritual conviction – sins of gluttony, suffering invading nausea and vomiting without compensation, etc. However, given our shared value of freedom, we recognize that all participants will make their choice based on individual motives and justification, which may or may not be linked to their personal values.

To those persons we say be careful: You may mirror disparaging actions of your academic institution.

The purpose of this response is to question whether competitive eating is consistent with SLU’s Mission statement, the shared principles and values upon which the University founds its actions.

Although a complete exegesis is beyond the scope of this response, we provide the following excerpts which may provide initial points for reflection.  The SLU Mission Statement reads:

[SLU] is dedicated to leadership in the continuing quest for understanding of God’s creation and for the discovery, dissemination and integration of the values, knowledge and skills required to transform society in the spirit of the Gospels.

[SLU] fosters programs that link University resources to local, national and international communities in collaborative efforts to alleviate ignorance, poverty, injustice and hunger; extend compassionate care to the ill and needy; and maintain and improve the quality of life for all persons.”

Before parsing-out the relevant concepts within our excerpts, let’s first consider a few facts associated with food, global suffering and poverty.

Currently, 68 percent of Americans are either overweight or obese.

In 2006, more than one-third (831,272) of all deaths were related to a form of cardiovascular disease.

Six million children die in the world every year, due to starvation and malnutrition.

Meat-eating alone contributes to two of the top three causes of global warming.

Given the juxtaposition of global famine and local abundance, how does SLU’s promotion of engulfing food for personal motives bed with an orientation toward integrated Christian values, for example ‘dissemination and integration of the values…to transform society in the spirit of the Gospels,’ ‘efforts to alleviate ignorance, poverty, injustice and hunger; extend compassionate care to the ill and needy; and maintain and improve the quality of life for all persons?’
If Christian values speak to promoting behaviors that attribute value to ourselves and others, then a justification to encourage our students to waste food and poorly treat their bodies is hypocritical at best and heretical at worst.

In the future, let us consider, when we mindlessly act without consideration of our core community values, that our actions and behaviors become our core values we hold.

Jesse Walls, MSW, is the Sr. Research Assistant at SLU Family and Community Medicine.

Fred Rottnek, MD, is an Associate Professor at SLU Family and Community Medicine.

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