The sudden death of Grammy Award winning recording artist Mandisa weeks ago shocked the Christian music community worldwide — and now the cause of death has been revealed.
A former American Idol contestant, Mandisa Lynn Hundley died at age 47 in her Nashville home on April 18. During her memorial service on April 27, her father, John Hundley, stated that she “fell down in her bedroom (and) they found her on the floor.”
According to an autopsy report obtained by People Magazine, Mandisa died of complications related to class III obesity.
The condition is explained in an FAQ published by the Cleveland Clinic. “Class III obesity, formerly known as morbid obesity, is a complex chronic disease in which a person has a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or higher or a BMI of 35 or higher and is experiencing obesity-related health conditions,” states the website.
Mandisa’s inspirational Gospel-pop hits have been a mainstay on contemporary Christian radio for more than a decade, notably her song “Overcomer.”
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Hundreds showed up to her memorial service in Brentwood, Tennessee, on April 27, as well as more than 11,500 people live-streamed the service online.
Well-known Christian speaker and author Beth Moore took to the stage to share about Mandisa’s impact in her own life.
“Whatever she did, she did it with every molecule she had,” said Moore. “Mandisa had an impact on an audience that no one I have ever seen. She was simply sublime, utterly mesmerizing. She loved Jesus in a way that made everyone around her love Him. We witnessed her worship when no one was looking.”
Mandisa wrote about her struggles with depression and other issues in her book, Out of the Dark: My Journey through the Shadows to Find God’s Joy, released in 2022.
“So many people have struggled,” she told CHVN Radio in a 2022 interview. “Even people that we see in the Bible. The way that I see God address those people, is not by saying, ‘I’m so ashamed of you, I’m so disappointed,’ but with love and with grace.
“I want to encourage people, even if you think you’re not making a difference, reaching out and letting somebody know that you care and that you love them, they hear that.”
Freelance journalist Josh Shepherd writes on faith, culture, and public policy for several media outlets. He and his family live in the Washington, D.C. area.
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13 Responses
Hmm, just guessing here, but she never looked so obese that it would have caused her death. Wondering if she took the “Sheep Shots” that were pushed so hard. The vaccine deaths are climbing fast (spike protein/clots) despite so many trying to hide as many as possible (especially “higher-profile” individuals). More people should be angry and up-in-arms about the death of this lovely woman and her amazing gift lost to the world “crying out” for such gifts of God, than trying to pursue blaming spouses for suicide-by-mental-disorders. In other words, why not call in the FBI? Don’t just take some (the first and only) examiners’ word for it? Let’s not be satisfied until we get to the “real truth.” Why was it OKay to not believe a Sheriff’s department investigation in one instance, but everyone should be “satisfied” with this one “autopsy?”
One thing to note here is that sudden cardiac arrest is not limited to people who are visibly morbidly obese. For example, runner Jim Fixx, who had been overweight but not obese, died of a massive heart attack while running at age 52. He was about 6′ and 150 lbs at the time, and had gotten up to ~214 lbs before. So the tendency to heart attacks is not by any means just a matter of weight.
But that noted, if Mandisa was class III obese, she was at least 200lbs at 5’4″, and she commented about having lost and regained 120 lbs, which suggests to me she was probably getting up around 250. We are talking about a lot of stress on her heart, even if she seemed to carry that weight well. (people tell me I do the same, for reference)
Long and short of it is that I’m persuaded that we “fundagelicals” are way too accepting of a lot of extra weight, and we would do well to start thinking a lot more like Europeans to change the “organ recitals” we do each Wednesday prayer meeting–the “organ recital” being “Betty has problems with her heart, Bob has problems with his back and knees….” One thing I say to a friend of mine at church is “have you taken yourself for a walk today?” It’s those little things, and actually tasting one’s food before swallowing, that make a huge difference.
I totally agree with you Alan. That was my first thought, too. Things like this just keep happening, and the number of cases like this continues to rise. I don’t care what “causes” people give for deaths like this. There is so much information out there, now, that points to the “jabs” as being a major culprit in the rise of sudden deaths. People need to wake up about what is going on.
Alan, my friend, are you quite ok? There are no doctors prescribing sheep medication for humans, unless of course you mean Ivermectin, which was designed for livestock but has application in humans for worms and scabies.
This dear sister died of complications arising from being overweight. Americans on the whole are quite overweight and some people’s bodies handle it worse than others. Mandisa’s body apparently couldn’t handle it well. I’m sorry for the loss her family is experiencing.
Extra weight however is bad for everyone: physical pounds and emotional baggage too that weighs us down. Please consider taking a long break from whatever news media and online memes are feeding you conspiracy theories. It’s not healthy. Go outside and enjoy God’s creation. You’ll feel better.
Couldn’t you ask Alan to clarify what he meant instead of asking him if he’s “quite ok?!”?
He is clearly in his right mind and was using a euphemism for the experimental shots that most of the world took unquestioningly in the last few years.
Even the mainstream media are now (finally) reporting on the increased mortality rates worldwide, increase in “turbo cancers – especially among the young – and noticeable rise in heart issues globally.
I agree that in Mandisa’s case, we don’t know if she took it and also morbid obesity is the evident cause of death but Alan is right in at least mentioning the previously unmentionable (and censored) facts.
There is no such thing as “turbo cancer” — cancer is cancer, and there have always been aggressive forms of cancer that kill within weeks or months of diagnosis if not caught until stage three or four.
It is a term that has been made up by antivaxx conspiracy theorists, just like “clot shots” and the deliberately chosen pejorative “sheep shots” implying that anyone who got the vaccine was a sheep blindly following the government.
As for the vaccines being “experimental” this is also untrue. New vaccines normally take years to go through their trials because (for reasons of cost and logistics) they only test them against small groups of volunteers at a time, so it takes that long to collect enough safety and efficacy data to know if the vaccine is safe and effective.
Given the urgency and scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, the trials were testing tens of thousands of volunteers at a time — many times more than usual — cutting the data collection time required to mere months. It was an unprecedented worldwide effort. By the time the FDA initially approved the COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020, they had already been tested to a much greater degree than any other vaccine in history.
Nothing has been censored. The data is all out there and it is simply not in the antivaxxers’ favor. The COVID-19 vaccines are not killing millions of people worldwide — they have saved millions of lives — but COVID-19 is still killing people, at least in part because of the antivaxxer rhetoric based on lies and ignorance.
“ June 11, 2024: Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF) issued a press release regarding their recent win in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, remanding the case back to the district court. Judge R. Nelson and Judge Collins concurred that the LA County School District’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate violated individual human rights of employees because the COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ do not prevent against infection, nor transmission, and therefore, are not ‘vaccines.’”
@Kenly Wayne
So let’s forget the literal mountain of scientific evidence showing that the COVID-19 vaccines are indeed effective in significantly reducing infection rates, hospitalizations and death, and instead quote an activist antivaxx organization’s heavily biased take on the decision of two activist Trump appointed appeals court judges bucking decades of precedent to reopen a case (brought by an antivaxxer with zero medical training) that’s already moot since the mandates (as predicted) no longer exist.
The actual case hasn’t even been heard yet and if it all hinges on the claim that the COVID-19 vaccine is not a vaccine because it doesn’t 100% prevent infection or the spread (note: no vaccine is 100% effective) then they’re still going to lose, after wasting lord knows how much more public money.
Even if a vaccine doesn’t prevent infection at all, and only reduce the severity of the disease in most if not all cases, then it’s still a vaccine. It is still a drug that causes the human body to creates antibodies against the targeted disease. That fact is beyond all doubt (except in the minds of conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers, apparently).
No question that obesity is a killer. I myself have had a dear family member die from it. I am sorry to hear that she succumb to it as well.
Would the forced injection have been a factor also?
There is no proof of any injection of any kind forced or otherwise.
Yikes. Yep. Recently, my health care system just had us take a weight sensitivity training for CME. Obesity is a killer for sure. And the stats keep rising each year. 2/3 of every US adult is classified as overweight or obese. Even the epidemic is rising in juveniles: children, adolescents. And the 2030 projection is on another level….whew. American health care system is failing its citizens and denizens.
Worst in southern states, followed by mid-west, then the east coast, and the least obese seen in the west coast. Colorado is the lone ranger in that, for its dense population, that state has a remarkable low rate of obesity. Must be all that mountain climbing outdoorsy stuffs.
Obesity is a multifactorial process; and some things we have little control over like genetics. But, for the most part keeping healthy weight is within ones volition or control.
Population that is exponentially blowing up……not good for productivity and longevity. It is good that one should make an attempt to keep the temple of the LORD in good condition inside and out. Amen?
Amen!
All of the vaccine speculation here is disturbing. God has granted us the capacity to develop preventive medicine, and skepticism about the Covid vaccine has tainted perceptions of other immunization campaigns. As a result, rubella is on the rebound. Let’s look out for each other by following public health recommendations rather than listening to conspiracy theorists.