{"id":6112,"date":"2011-08-19T06:40:06","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T10:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=6112"},"modified":"2011-08-19T06:42:06","modified_gmt":"2011-08-19T10:42:06","slug":"reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners","title":{"rendered":"Reuters: Mississippi preacher bans fried chicken from church dinners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Pastor Michael Minor stirred a bit of controversy at his northwest Mississippi church when he banned fried chicken from the fellowship hall,&#8221; reports Colleen Jenkins for the British news service Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>After all, fried chicken is considered by some to be just short of a sacrament, particularly in the South. The traditional meal to serve the pastor and his family for Sunday dinner is fried chicken.<\/p>\n<p>But convinced that faith communities need to step up their efforts against obesity, Pastor Minor is now urging fellow congregations nationwide to make the health of their members a priority, writes Jenkins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Our bodies are not our own. They&#8217;re a gift from God,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We should do a better job with our bodies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Church leaders across the country agree. A pastor in San Antonio, Texas, last month kicked off a 100-day challenge that pairs faith with fat-fighting. A church in Tampa, Florida, hosted classes on healthier eating. Others have instituted &#8220;Salad Sundays,&#8221; community gardens and exercise programs.<\/p>\n<p>The wellness push comes at an opportune time, with recent reports showing Americans keep getting heavier. The problem is particularly worrisome in the South, the region with the country&#8217;s highest adult obesity rates.<\/p>\n<p>Public health experts say faith communities, with their long records of tending to the sick and driving social change, are in a unique position to help tackle the obesity epidemic and the severe health problems associated with it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Churches are a foundation in the community,&#8221; said Victor Sutton, director of the Office of Preventive Health for the Mississippi state health department.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sometimes you can have a doctor tell someone something, and they&#8217;ll blow it off,&#8221; he said. &#8220;A pastor can tell someone what to do, and they&#8217;ll take it as a scientific fact.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"hthttp:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2011\/08\/09\/us-obesity-churches-idUSTRE7783MQ20110809tp:\/\/\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Pastor Michael Minor stirred a bit of controversy at his northwest Mississippi church when he banned fried chicken from the fellowship hall,&#8221; reports Colleen Jenkins for the British news service Reuters. After all, fried chicken is considered by some to be just short of a sacrament, particularly in the South. The traditional meal to serve&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2204,1443],"class_list":["post-6112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian","tag-christian","tag-fried-chicken"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Reuters: Mississippi preacher bans fried chicken from church dinners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reuters: Mississippi preacher bans fried chicken from church dinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;Pastor Michael Minor stirred a bit of controversy at his northwest Mississippi church when he banned fried chicken from the fellowship hall,&#8221; reports Colleen Jenkins for the British news service Reuters. After all, fried chicken is considered by some to be just short of a sacrament, particularly in the South. The traditional meal to serve&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-19T10:40:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-19T10:42:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Reuters: Mississippi preacher bans fried chicken from church dinners","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Reuters: Mississippi preacher bans fried chicken from church dinners","og_description":"&#8220;Pastor Michael Minor stirred a bit of controversy at his northwest Mississippi church when he banned fried chicken from the fellowship hall,&#8221; reports Colleen Jenkins for the British news service Reuters. After all, fried chicken is considered by some to be just short of a sacrament, particularly in the South. The traditional meal to serve&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-08-19T10:40:06+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-08-19T10:42:06+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners","name":"Reuters: Mississippi preacher bans fried chicken from church dinners","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-08-19T10:40:06+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-19T10:42:06+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/reuters-mississippi-preacher-bans-fried-chicken-from-church-dinners#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Reuters: Mississippi preacher bans fried chicken from church dinners"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6112"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6214,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112\/revisions\/6214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}