The Word of Wisdom

Elder Widtsoe wrote: “To many of our members feel that if they refrain from taking liquor, tobacco, tea and coffee, they are keeping the Word of Wisdom.  They are doing so only in part.  If the law be understood and lived, people would not be ill and the blessings promised may be fulfilled….The Church of Christ must ever try to care for the whole man.”

He also said, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ is designed to give man health and happiness. Health is concerned with the spirit and mind as well as with the body of man.  The Gospel is mistakenly supposed to concern only man’s spiritual health. Mental and physical health forms the only assurance of spiritual progress.  A man who is physically or mentally ill is not truly happy, though he may approach spiritual peace.  The three parts of man’s nature are interrelated and depend upon one another’s welfare.”

Elder Widtsoe wrote, “In the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, the sanctity of the body is second only to that of the spirit.  It is the duty, as well as the desire, of every person to preserve his physical health, so that he may live out most completely the destiny of his existence.”

The author summarized some of Leah’s writings by saying, “That teaching children about [physical health] exceeds the importance of teaching them reading, writing, or arithmetic.”

And later he summarized her again by saying, “Leah explained that mortal bodies are composed of dust of the earth, which chemists had divided into fifteen elements that could be found only in the Lord’s foods, the plants and fruits of the ground.  Children should be fed with at least as much thought as farmers put into feeding their prizewinning livestock…a person’s health is largely a function of the food consumed.”

To read the story of his book that the first presidency approved go here.