Rigorous fasting -- or starvation?

Unless you're working downtown this Saturday, today is the last workday you can eat meat for lunch. ;^)

Fortunately, with Jason's Deli now on Main Street, their salad bar offers enough meatless/dairyless options (no cheese after next week) that one can eat out on occasion reasonably well over the next 8 weeks, unless one is going to be a stickler about any possible olive or other oil in their pasta salad, hummus or potato salad.

It sounds like Jonathan's metabolism, developed as it was on American dietary habits and European genetics, simply wasn't prepared for the rigorous fasting of the Copts he was living with. It stands to reason that the Coptic Christians of Egypt today are genetically and developmentally suited to their fasting traditions. I doubt there was any intention on the part of the Egyptian family to harm Jonathan, but I also doubt they understood exactly how dangerous it was for him to observe their traditions so strictly.

Presumably a parasite would have been detected during his post-trip medical treatment. The article makes no mention of one. Also, no one's body is actually "used" to dealing with tapeworms and the like. A parasite will adversely affect anyone's health, even if they're accustomed to a strict fasting tradition.

allen, Copts here in the States follow the same fasting rules, and I know plenty of fat Copts. Kid either contracted a parasite or had an abusive host family or both-- has nothing to do with the religion.

Need a medical evaluation. I'm guessing parasite, other illness, or psychological problem. (And/or abusive family.) If all the Copts expired in their teens of malnutrition, there wouldn't be any more Copts.

I still think we need a medical evaluation to rule out parasites, and a psychological evaluation to rule out abuse and/or psychiatric factors. Perhaps "evolutionary theory on a very small scale" would eliminate all of the above: people susceptible to parasites would die and that's the end of them, and the abusive or mentally ill, more of the same. But if this were my kid, I'd send him to the doctor.

The fact that the host family claims that the kid ate like a horse also makes me suspect severe culture clash at best, or abuse and coverup at worst.

In any event, the agency clearly didn't do enough to prepare either the student or the host family for the experience.

Christians with common sense would see to it that he got enough to eat. Not just stand there.

I'd like to think Copts of the past would also see that their children got enough to eat, fasting or not. I don't see their evolving into a fasting super race.

To me, it's simple. If you hosted a child that was losing more weight than thought reasonable, wouldn't you contact his parents and the AFS? If the AFS was contacted and did nothing - I'd say they are simply not qualified to run such an organization. Simple as that. If, however, they were not contacted by the host family, then the host family either broke rules (for not contacting AFS) or there was no rule in place for such instances (any kind of illness resulting in the physiological change of a student WHATSOEVER!) You can't put this on religious beliefs. This is a common sence issue...and someone (or maybe more than one) chose to not to use it - or didn't have it. There were several lapses in judgement. But I can tell you this, I doubt I'd have my child go to a foreign country through AFS. I don't care how long they've been in business or how many children they place. They didn't handle this one AT ALL! Claiming ignorance isn't good or practical for them. ARe they to profess that, hey, once we place a student, that's it....we cut all ties? Do they do a follow-up during the year? Do they call the students? Do they provide counseling? Are the host families required to follow rules....or use common sense?

Rod, Just a small point. You mention that the family is Coptic Orthodox but I didn't notice that when I had read the AP story. I would venture a guess that the family is probably not Orthodox (or even Catholic) but rather Monophysite, who comprise the vast majority of Egyptian Christians.

I don't know whether that means his symptoms should therefore be attributed to Mono.

(errr... sorry - I couldn't resist either)

(But the part about Monophysites I think is true).

From the article:

"McCullum says he was denied sufficient food while staying with a family of Coptic Christians"

Look. I have a foreign kid in my house who is in the process of losing one third of his body weight in only a few months, which any reasonable person would see is dangerous.

So what do I do now? Nothing? Allege that because he isn't tough enough to withstand my (alleged) religious beliefs he deserves to die?

So what if he isn't? ("Evolutionarily" ss per Eric.) That makes it OK to starve him to death? In furtherance of Darwin? HELLO?

In all fairness let's not park this on the Coptic Christian community in general or on their alleged religious practices. This particular family is off the wall, and maybe AFS is off the wall too for not checking on whether these folks had the resources to feed an extra child. And for not responding to danger signs.

And if the religious tradition of these folks really requires starving children to death? Please to cite passages in the gospels where Jesus says this is OK, not to mention virtuous.

Get a life. These folks are completely out of bounds by anyone's standards. Thank God the kid survived.

Anyone who thinks this is somehow Christianity has their head wedged.

This entire story strikes me as very weird. The figures given in the sotry work out to a loss of about a half a pound per day, and he looks anorexic-thin in the pictures. This young man is 17 years old, hardly a child. If the problem was just an abusive host family keeping him on a starvation diet, I find it hard to believe that any normal, healthy 17-year-old would not be screaming bloody murder within a week.

When I look at the images, and then read that the host claims the kid was eating a lot and constantly exercising, I have to say that the words "eating disorder" and "bulimia" cross my mind.

It's obvious to me that the Copts did it.

Why are we surprised? I mean, Copts are known for abusing teenagers. In fact, just this morning, a big fat Copt gave me a traffic ticket, claiming that my tag was expired.

Damned Copts.

What? Oh. Uh ... Nevermind.

Now you see there -- anyone old enough to remember, would be old enough to forget the proper character name.

;^)

To an extend I can understand how this could happen. I lived in Romania for a year some years ago, and I walked a lot more than usual, and I didn't eat much. Near the end of that year, people I knew commented on how much weight I'd lost. I hadn't noticed. (I wasn't emaciated, though.) On the other hand, I'm shocked when I look at my wedding video and see how thin I was (I got married near the end of that year).

Based on the length of time, weight lost, etc., this kid would've had to have a 1600-1700 calorie deficit *per day* to lose that much weight. I don't suppose that's impossible, but I wish the media would quit talking about the fact that the family are Copts. No part of the Coptic faith, any more than the Eastern Orthodox faith, advocates starving one's guests. For him to lose that much, they definitely had to be starving him, not just feeding him fast-appropriate foods.

As a citizen of this country I'm embarrassed that we have tried this Egyptian family in the press, with so little information coming from their side. I'm disgusted that mention of a lawsuit by the parents accompanied the first news items. Here is a student, who is just months short of attaining adult status in the eyes of the law. What are his responsibilities for his own health, even at age 17? They are immense. We would expect him to know not to have unsafe sex, not to drive while under the influence, and to loudly ask for help if he was not getting proper nourishment. The fact is, this child had a Facebook and Myspace presence, and was constantly in touch with his friends back home--though not his parents obviously. Egypt is a place where one can get food from a street vendor for pennies, shop at mini-marts, or eat American-style fast foods. If you think I believe he never dined out with friends, I do not. I'm angry we are being taken for a ride by this kid and his lawyer parents. They deleted his previously public internet journal of his Egypt experience, and now they have made his other internet presence private. I visited his myspace page before it was made private, and my impressions of him and his friends lead me to believe it is ludicrous to believe he could not find "anything under the sun" in Egypt. We are being hoodwinked, misled, and preyed upon by this family. I hope responsible journalism will show eventually that there is much more to this picture that has been told so far.

Anonymous is clearly confusing the "Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church", a cult, with the "Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria" established in 42AD by Mark the Evangelist. The latter is not associated at all with the former. It is not clear to me why the cult decided to use "Coptic" to describe itself. Wikipedia has a brief page on the cult. I'm not sure, however, what Anonymous meant by "the Muslim version of Christianity." Anyway, I would recommend that he or she try to at least learn the basic facts about the faiths of the Middle East.

As for the original posting, I think it's clear that none of the posters have all the facts. If, however, the family had indeed a role, we, as Copts, would consider the act very sinful. As a cradle Coptic Orthodox Christian, who has spent the greater part of his life in Egypt, I know for a fact that the Coptic Orthodox Church never advocates starvation of its members nor of their guests. (My apologies to fellow Copts who might be offended that I'm stating the obvious). In fact, it doesn't take a theologian to judge such an act as sinful in light of even the most basic teachings of the Gospels. I would very much hesitate to attribute such attitude to any faith or community as a whole without serious investigation.

I have research coptic orthodox extensively and have found that they are a cult. Cults are unaware that they are a cult because they are raised to believe that there practices are correct when in fact they are far from the truth. st barbara founded barbiturates and i have found several cases of innocent people be drugged with this drug. And what i see posted on the comment page defending the church are coptic orthodox.