Orthorexia Nervosa: The Health Food Eating Disorder

[Megan]

I'm a 99.99% vegetarian, and mostly vegan also, and I can see myself, and many other people I know, in this article:

Orthorexia Nervosa: The Health Food Eating Disorder

by Steven Bratman, MD

Because I am a physician who practices alternative medicine, patients who come to me often begin the conversation by asking whether they can be cured through diet. "Regular medical doctors don't know anything about nutrition," they say, believing this will build rapport with me.

I feel obligated to nod wisely. I agree that conventional medicine has traditionally paid too little attention to the effects of diet. However, I am no longer the true believer in nutritional medicine I used to be. My attitude has grown cautious where once it was enthusiastic and even evangelical.

[...]

Many of the most unbalanced people I have ever met are those have devoted themselves to healthy eating. In fact, I believe many of them have contracted a novel eating disorder, for which I have coined the name "orthorexia nervosa." The term uses "ortho," in its meaning as straight, correct and true, to modify "anorexia nervosa." Orthorexia nervosa refers to a fixation on eating proper food.

Orthorexia begins innocently enough, as a desire to overcome chronic illness or to improve general health. But because it requires considerable willpower to adopt a diet which differs radically from the food habits of childhood and the surrounding culture, few accomplish the change gracefully. Most must resort to an iron self-discipline bolstered by a hefty sense of superiority over those who eat junk food. Over time, what they eat, how much, and the consequences of dietary indiscretion come to occupy a greater and greater proportion of the orthorexic's day.

The act of eating pure food begins to carry pseudo-spiritual connotations. As orthorexia progresses, a day filled with sprouts, umeboshi plums and amaranth biscuits comes to feel as holy as one spent serving the poor and homeless. When an orthorexic slips up, (which, depending on the pertinent theory, may involve anything from devouring a single raisin in violation of the law to consuming a gallon of Haagen Daz ice cream and a supreme pizza), he experiences a fall from grace, and must take on numerous acts of penitence. These usually involve ever stricter diets and fasts.

Health Food Eating Disorders

Ring any bells?

[Mitja]

Not at all.

[openeyes]

That fits very well with how I used to be. Beyond this new term, there are also anorexics that are very into nutrition, such as one of my female friends that has better muscle definition than most amateur male bodybuilders. Bodybuilders themselves could often be said to have some sort of disorder, but it's tolerated because it's a sport (then there's wrestling, with its crazy ways of "making weight").

At this point I focus on eating in ways that I can enjoy and that leave me feeling well afterward. No more chlorella concoctions, or spoons of bee pollen. My diet right now is closer to being "normal" than it had been in almost a decade. It's still a bit different, but mostly in the sense that I think my food tastes better than average college student fair, and I prepare most of my own meals. I rarely touch soft drinks, but Ben & Jerry are welcome to visit on occasion

[Cron]

Like someone else wrote, this applied to me when I went raw and veg at 14
( good ol cooked vegan now, 100% ).

I call these people food cultists and I believe they are looking for a magic wand to build their sense of power on. In this case the wand is the diet.

To me one's diet should be about ethical choices for the animals, for one's health, and the good of the environment. IMHO something is lacking in someone if they start to obsess over minute details about the salubriousness of the food, especially how impossible it is to have a perfect diet in this world.

Better to find what you are lacking inside somewhere else.

[Megan]

I had to laugh about that, Openeyes--so me, at one time of my life, but like you and Cron, not so much now, but the "gene" is still there & flairs up every now and then.

Occasionally I still I go in to what I've come to think of as my Purification/Enlightenment/Ascension Zone with the diet thing, but I'm kind of on to myself now, and it doesn't last long. I'm sure I'm pretty insufferable in that state for those around me.

And, OK, I still like to drink 'Green Drink' most every day, but Ben and Jerry are my friends too.

I think you're probably right about the power thing, Cron--that's what they always say about anorexia, and I suspect there is a similar dynamic with this also.

The article I cited mentioned "pseudo-spiritual connotations," and that's a sticky wicket, because I think there are spiritual implications to diet, but a line gets crossed somewhere when scrupulosity kicks in.

Scrupulosity is obsessive concern with one's personal sins, including "sinful" acts or thoughts usually considered minor or not sins at all within one's religious tradition. The term is derived from the Latin scrupulus, a sharp stone, implying a stabbing pain on the conscience.

Scrupulosity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I used to have terrible pangs of conscience about what I ate--it just plagued me, but I think what Cron said makes so much sense:

To me one's diet should be about ethical choices for the animals, for one's health, and the good of the environment. IMHO something is lacking in someone if they start to obsess over minute details about the salubriousness of the food, especially how impossible it is to have a perfect diet in this world.

Better to find what you are lacking inside somewhere else.

I'm going to remind myself of that next time I start to go into the 'Zone.'

Mitja--count yourself lucky!

[Cron]

Every now and then I read an article about the strict standards research scientists meet before they say they "know" something.

The thing that gets me about Orthorexia Nervosists ( food cultists ) is that they speak so authoritatively and even go out of their way to be food mavens without even being aware that they really do not know what they think they know.

[Athena]

Essentially, make sure your motivations for a healthy diet are positive, balanced and mentally healthy.

Not negative or fear-based, as loooks like the case here.

[Healthyfit]

Great Article

[Megan]

Thanks, Healthyfit; I agree, Athena.

By Cron, Yesterday 08:41 PM

The thing that gets me about Orthorexia Nervosists ( food cultists ) is that they speak so authoritatively and even go out of their way to be food mavens without even being aware that they really do not know what they think they know.

Yes, and I've fallen for it more times than I care to recall...and foreswore my lastest guru more times than I care to recall. I love this quote from the article:

Yet, it was more than a month later that I finally decided to make a decisive break. I was filled with feverish anticipation. Hordes of long suppressed gluttonous desires, their legitimacy restored, clamored to receive their due.

On the twenty minute drive into town, I planned and re-planned my junk food menu. Within ten minutes of arriving, I had eaten three tacos, a medium pizza, and a large milkshake. I brought the ice cream sandwich and banana split home, for I was too stuffed to violate my former vows further. My stomach was stretched to my knees.

Been there, done that.

[elainevdw]

Thanks so much for the post, Megan.

I read it a few days ago, but I've been really thinking about it ever since. It's so true that, when people feel that they've lost control in other parts of their life, they decide that their body, their diet, their nourishment can give them some sort of ownership over how their life is turning out. Yet it seems that, the more you focus on it, the more your diet can go so out of control, you don't even know that you're doing yourself harm.

People talk about how much modern society focuses on drugs. It seems that the new age crowd is just as susceptible to the idea that there's some magic cure out there. But instead of it being the right type of chemicals, it's the right combination of food. It's a certain berry from Tibet, it's a certain nut from Brazil. While it's true that your diet, of all your daily habits, probably has the most impact on your health, it's by no means the drug that people are making it out to be.

It's definitely something to keep in mind. Because sometimes I fall into that trap, too, thinking, "My life would be just so perfect if I ..." Eat raw, Eat vegan, Go on a juice fast, etc. But in reality, as long as I don't eat potato chips all day, it's not my diet but these situations I place myself in that drain my energy, and no amount or quality of food is going to make those situations magically resolve.

[Megan]

You're most welcome, Elaine, and I appreciate all you said:

Yet it seems that, the more you focus on it, the more your diet can go so out of control, you don't even know that you're doing yourself harm.

Yeah, it's almost like a trance I get into sometimes, and then wake up from.

Especially with the juice fasting thing--it's like these fantasies of what it's going to do for me take over, but I always, always come crashing down, like Icarus flying too close to the sun with his waxen wings.

To put it another way, it's kind of like stretching a rubber band real far and having it snap back with a vengeance. Ouch!

No amount of "perfect" food is going to solve the things I'm supposedly going to solve with all that perfect food and abstention from "bad" food--all those "situations I place myself in" that you speak of.

I think the book, Intuitive Eating has a pretty sensible take on things.