Fasts can range in duration from a few days to help the body heal itself to medically supervised water fasts of 30 days or more to treat serious illnesses like osteo- or rheumatoid arthritis or asthma. All of the physicians consulted stress that fasts of longer than two or three days should not be done […]
The Fasting Catholic Saints
The fasting saints of the Middle Ages are considered holy men and holy women by the Catholic Church. Ironically, the same church viewed many of them with extreme skepticism—at times denouncing them—primarily because of their extreme fasting. In her thesis, A Thin Body Carries the Most Definition(s): Reconceptualizing Voluntary Self-Starvation as an Act of Resistance, […]