For our Sounding Board column, U.S. Catholic asks authors to argue one side of a many-sided issue of importance to Catholics around the country. We also invite readers to submit their responses to these opinion essays—whether agreement or disagreement—in the survey that follows. A selection of the survey results appear below, as well as in the July 2026 issue of U.S. Catholic. You can participate in our current survey here.
The survey says . . .
I have felt pressured in Catholic spaces to pursue dieting or fitness.
Agree: 13%
Disagree: 87%
I have experienced fat shaming, ableism, or body shaming in Catholic spaces.
Agree: 14%
Disagree: 86%
Exercise and diet can be meaningfully integrated into spiritual practice.
Agree: 92%
Disagree: 8%
Have you ever participated in a faith-based wellness or fitness program?
Yes, currently: 4%
Yes, in the past: 8%
No, but I would consider it: 41%
No, and I would not consider it: 47%
Just before Lent began, I started seeing targeted ads for a Catholic exercise ministry called “Hypuro Fit.” I do social media Just before Lent, I started seeing ads for a Catholic exercise ministry called Hypuro Fit. I do social media management for several Catholic organizations, so algorithms are under the impression that I’m interested in anything Catholic, regardless of what’s being sold.
The brand’s content immediately caught my eye—and raised alarm, from a disability theology perspective. Harmful theologies of healing are still latent in many Catholic spaces. We still hear messages about bodily difference as a sign of sin, that healing must be literal and complete, and that a person can earn healing through prayer, atonement, or hard work. Such beliefs are exclusionary to people who are permanently disabled or chronically ill.
Hypuro Fit’s slogan—“self-mastery for the sake of self-gift”—first led me to think it was a ministry for people who struggle with some form of addiction. It takes inspiration from Theology of the Body—a compilation of St. Pope John Paul II’s Wednesday audiences, not about exercise or health, but about nuptial and sexual relationships. Theology of the Body’s claims about complementarity and sexual behaviors are based on ideas from the Genesis creation myths.
How does this relate to physical fitness? Theology of the Body associates imperfection with the fall. But embodied difference is not sinful; it is natural. And when it comes to disability, even those lucky to be conventionally fit and strong will eventually be disabled by aging.
To their credit, Hypuro Fit seems conscientious about the realities of aging. Their content, particularly videos geared toward religious men, often speaks about the desire to serve “as long as possible” or “while you still can,” though the moralizing is still present: One guest in a video says, “Fat priests die, and if you die, you can’t help.”
Diet culture profits from self-hatred and fear, particularly regarding weight and musculature, often relating them to style, longevity, and romantic compatibility. In recent years, diet culture has expanded to encompass “wellness,” so beyond peddling thinness for women and bigness for men, it also sells a sort of prosperity gospel through supplements, matcha, celery juice, red light therapy, and boutique gyms: If you just do the right things, you too can achieve total mastery over your body.
Wellness culture is implicitly theological. Catholic ministries have assigned a religious creed to wellness products. In her book The Gospel of Wellness (Henry Holt and Co.), Rina Raphael writes:
Wellness . . . is an almost aspirational obsession for some and close to religious dogma for others. The average American believes adherence to popularized methods can overcome sickness, unhappiness, and even death. A strict overhaul of diet, movement, and thoughts is hailed as the new messiah. In wellness, it seems, we trust.
Hypuro Fit’s theology pays special attention to the sins of intemperance and sloth, frequently aligning them with habits like eating “bad foods,” avoiding exercise, and even excessive asceticism. Its success depends upon theological connections between physical ability, health, size, and moral goodness. The founder suggests that exercise be accompanied by the sacrament of confession. One video says, “I’m a better person the healthier I am.” Does that mean unhealthy people are worse people?
Some people might argue that different rules apply for those pursuing health in a normatively able body, versus those with disability and chronic illness. But all bodies exist on a spectrum of health. Exercise ought to be for every body.
Hypuro Fit seems to agree. They say on their blog: “For those who struggle with health (whether due to genetics, injury, or illness) . . . your body’s dignity is not tied to its ‘performance.’ Caring for your health is about offering what you have, in whatever state you are in, to the Lord.”
Yet they also claim to be for people who “can’t get themselves off the couch.” How might a message like that sound to a person with mobility challenges? Why is it so hard to talk about exercise in a way that dignifies disabled people? Because acceptance doesn’t sell. Self-hatred does. And the things we’re taught to hate about our bodies are often implicitly ableist.
Another Catholic wellness ministry is Reform Wellness, whose mission is to “reclaim health as the state of your body and soul.” The name invokes images of bodily and behavioral modification, sweeping changes to institutions, and, again, sins and mistakes. The word reclaim suggests that normative health is natural and invokes a pre-fall humanity. In this framework, disability and chronic illnesses are aberrations, wrapped up in ideas about inherited wrongdoing.
In scripture, Jesus makes it clear that disability and illness are not punishments. When he is asked of the blind man, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he be born blind?” Jesus answers, “Neither.”
It is good and important to move your body. But a healthy embodied spirituality must be inclusive of bodies of all kinds. Feeling strong while lifting weights, feeling calm during yoga, feeling lit from within while running: All of these are good. Appreciation for creation and one’s body and keeping promises to yourself are accessible to all people, including the disabled, aging, and ill.
God loves all bodies, and a body is no holier for exercising or being a certain strength or size. If we all ate the same foods and did the same workout regimens, we would still have different body types, shapes, sizes, and abilities. Bodies metabolize fat and build muscle at different rates. Some people are perfectly healthy in larger bodies.
Readers weigh in:
I had never heard of anything like a culture of Catholic health and exercise until I read this article. It sounds like some kind of a cult culture. I don’t know where this is happening, but I don’t think it exists anywhere in my community or nearby. I’m not sure the Catholic Church should be so involved in people’s personal lives as to dictate what they eat or how they exercise.
Name withheld
Our body is a temple and a testament to God. We are made in God’s image. We should think of exercise and diet as ways to help us spread the good news on Earth for as long as possible.
Todd Bryan, West Sacramento, Calif.
Eating disorders are life-threatening illnesses and can last for a lifetime. People with eating disorders struggle in isolation because of our society’s focus on the body and the idea that thin equals healthy. It doesn’t. We don’t need this in the church, too. The church has been a safe place for my family. Please keep it that way and keep diet and fitness culture out of the church.
Name withheld
I find it disturbing that we idolize saints who so deprived themselves of the necessities of life that they suffered with illness and died young. Living only on the Eucharist for years is just anorexia, not iron-clad self-mastery, and that’s a lethal disease.
Karen Karn, Golden Valley, Minn.
Disabled people cannot self-master their way to a nondisabled life, and you can’t punish your way to normative health. Real self-mastery starts with acceptance of the body one has. Exercise and eating should come from a place of loving one’s body and wanting to treat it well, or at least from a place of neutrality. Movement and food are things our bodies need. They are not related to sin and worthiness at all.
The multibillion-dollar wellness industry preys on peoples’ deepest insecurities. People, especially young people, have very little control in our current world full of violence, starvation, and hate. Social interaction, dating, and third spaces are rapidly deteriorating as humans choose the online world over the physical one. When a person can’t control anything else, they’re left with trying to control themselves. We’re seeing this in the advent of male “looksmaxxing” and women’s cosmetic surgery.
Catholic ministries should disrupt this trend entirely, not by slapping Jesus’ face onto the same fallacies but by deescalating and redirecting this desperation for control. Studies show that the more time a person spends in nature, in community service activities, and in creative expression, the more stress resilience they build. Thinking less about oneself and one’s body makes one better able to respond to anxiety with flexibility and hope.
Exercise ministries neglect this aspect of community care. They may reference showing up for one’s community—especially the family unit—but their solutions are ultimately individualistic: Just work harder and pray more. Instead, Catholics should focus on community solutions that would enable everyone to make kinder choices for themselves regardless of ability: affordable healthcare, nutrient-dense food options, public transportation, and accessibility measures.
During his time on Earth, Jesus repeatedly sought out the sick and disabled. And time and again, he prioritized return to community. In Jesus’ time, those with nonnormative bodies were outcasts. By healing them, especially on the Sabbath, Jesus made a bold statement that nothing—no religious ritual, no social norm—is more important than caring for one another and inviting people into belonging. Christ’s healing is community healing.
If physical flawlessness were a priority for God, Jesus would not have resurrected with his wounds. This is what Nancy Eiesland calls the disabled God. The life of Jesus shows how much there is to be learned not by mastering one’s bodily differences into oblivion but by accepting one’s body as crucial to one’s story.
This article also appears in the July 2026 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 91, No. 7, pages 29-33). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
Results are based on survey responses from 53 uscatholic.org visitors.
Image: Unsplash/Victor Freitas
