Less is more - at least for some

Lent begins at St Patrick's Cathedral in Auckland with the sign of the cross for Ash Wednesday. Picture / Richard Robinson

The early Christians shunned meat and fish for six weeks a year, Liz Hurley limits herself to one meal a day and some of the biggest bestsellers are detox diet books.

Throughout history, self-denial has been an undeniably fashionable virtue.

On Ash Wednesday tomorrow, millions of Christians - and non-believers - round the world will give up chocolate, smoking, alcohol or a host of other vices for the 40 days of Lent.

They will join - albeit for different reasons - the legions already following a stringent diet and exercise regime.

According to research released by the Virgin Money credit card company yesterday, would-be dieters have already shelled out 78 million ($205 million) this year in a bid to shed their Christmas flab.

Being on the wagon may improve the state of your liver, forgoing fatty foods will help your figure, and not smoking for Lent may make you feel virtuous, but doubts remain about the benefits of such self-sacrifice.

Most research shows that people who try to follow diets such as Atkins often end up putting all the weight back on within weeks of ending their period of self-denial.

Lent comes from the old English word lencten, meaning spring, and was used to describe the lengthening of the days after the long winter nights.

The Christian tradition of fasting before religious festivals was borrowed from Judaism. John the Baptist was a particular adherent, insisting that candidates for baptism went without food for a time before the ceremony.

By the 7th century, the Christian church had developed the rule of a 40-day fast from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, in remembrance of Christ's time in the wilderness. The faithful were allowed one meal a day, although meat, fish and eggs were forbidden - a kind of reverse-Atkins diet for early Christians.

This period was also a time for people who had been thrown out of the church to perform acts of penitence in the hope of being welcomed back to the fold on Easter Sunday.

Although Lent is much more strictly observed in the Catholic Church, the Salvation Army has held an annual Self-Denial Week since 1886. A hard-up follower called John Carleton announced that he had no ready cash to give to the cause, but instead planned to go without his daily pudding for a year in order to save and donate 50 shillings. The first self-denial week raised about 4000, and now generates millions each year for the Army's work.

Two years ago, Prince Charles gave up lunch for Lent, a move that caused a few problems when, just days after beginning his sacrifice, he had to attend a midday function promoting British beef to European business chiefs.

Oscar Wilde, not known for his self-restraint, once wrote: "Self-denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity."

But fellow playwright George Bernard Shaw took a more pragmatic, if equally curmudgeonly, approach. He said that, though an atheist, he thought Lent an excellent occasion for "giving up reading other people's books".

Says agony aunt Virginia Ironside: "Just as you need to exercise physical muscles, you have psychic muscles that need to be exercised.

"Self-denial puts you in charge of your thoughts and feelings and not at the mercy of them, and this is useful when you're feeling low or obsessing about something ...

"It is no good just denying yourself things. You need to turn them on and off, which is strength of mind. It's something I'm very bad at.

"You must try to activate some control over your heart and mind. The exercise of self-denial can benefit you in other areas.

"I won't be giving anything up for Lent; I think it's rubbish."

Roger Scruton, philosopher: "Yes, as long as it's controlled.

"All religions have periods of fasting and privation, especially Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and there must be reasons. It reminds you of your own fragility and dependence, a higher being, and gives you control over your appetites.

"It is also expressing your gratitude for the good things in life because you are making them into something extra."

Author and media personality Stephen Russell, the Barefoot Doctor: "It depends what you intend to deny yourself, because there are some things we do that are so bad the only way around them is not to do them.

"My way is to focus attention on building the positive aspects of your life - exercise, nutrition, sleep and being kind and loving to those around you and to yourself, of course ...

"Whatever you focus your attention on will grow, so to focus on positive aspects is better than focusing on what is bad for you. Unless it is an extreme case or addiction, in which case you should take an expedient measure to deny yourself."

John McCririck, racing tipster: "It is a good thing. You shouldn't give in to all your desires. Give in to most, but not all, as long as you don't harm other people. If you are harming yourself it's your own fault.

"With drug addiction it's worse because these people harm themselves and others are harmed by them - the victims of crime who are mugged, attacked and sometimes killed ...

"Self-denial would help ease the crime which causes other innocent people to suffer.

"I don't deny myself much but over-indulgence has its consequences. I'm killing myself over-eating, but I drink Diet Coke and I take Canderel instead of sugar and I don't eat desserts. So you do try, up to a point."

Geshe Tashi, Tibetan Buddhist monk: "Self-denial, as a concept, does not really exist within Buddhism. We use the term 'selflessness'.

"The Buddha taught us there is no eternal inner being, but the mind and the body should be viewed as one, and to achieve a kind of enlightenment, we have to focus on changing our internal lives.

"In some ways, Buddhists are showing a form of devotion in that we try to stay away from material possessions. Material possessions may bring some comfort, but in the long-term they bring us nothing but misery.

"There are some traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, and also in Japanese Shintoism, where the path to enlightenment can take an extreme form. Starvation is one method of achieving this, but the Buddha taught us specifically to take the middle path and find a balance in our physical and spiritual life. Starvation is not helpful in the development of the mental life, in the same way excessive luxury also prevents enlightenment.

"This idea of starvation to achieve enlightenment is often misunderstood and forms no part of mainstream Buddhist life. If we practised self-denial (in the Christian sense), we would be unable to experience the cessation of suffering because there would be no self to witness it."

Dr Janet Treasure, Eating Disorder Unit, Kings College London: "Self-denial provokes feelings of euphoria and excitement. It seems to involve a sense of elevating yourself above others because you are doing something not everyone will be able to manage.

"There is evidence to suggest that, in childhood, obsessive devotion to order will make you more prone to later eating disorders. Anorexia is an ultimate expression of taking control over yourself - self-denial as self-control.

"Withdrawal of nutrition causes weight loss, bloating of the stomach, dizziness and vivid hallucinations.

"For some reason, studies show men are more stoic than women when food is withdrawn, although this isn't the case when talking directly about anorexics. Women consistently responded more to images of food."

- INDEPENDENT