Orthorexia nervosa
Posted March 7, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Wow…I’m reading the archives of the Health At Every Size blog, and came across an item talking about orthorexia nervosa:
It’s great to eat healthy food, and most of us could benefit by paying a little more attention to what we eat. However, some people have the opposite problem: they take the concept of healthy eating to such an extreme that it becomes an obsession. I call this state of mind orthorexia nervosa: literally, “fixation on righteous eating.”
Such people are sometimes affectionately called “healthfood junkies.” However, in some cases, orthorexia goes beyond a mere lifestyle choice. Obsession with healthy food can progress to the point where it crowds out other activities and interests, impairs relationships, and even becomes physically dangerous. When this happens, orthorexia takes on the dimensions of a true eating disorder, like anorexia nervosa or bulimia.
Andrew Weil wrote an interesting article on addiction where he speculates that one approach for dealing with our tendency to become addicted is to choose more positive addictions.
Who knew that an apparent positive addiction (healthy eating) could become so seriously disordered?
March 7th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
One of my friends dated this woman for a couple of years who was obsessed like that with healthy food. She had been a ballet dancer and had been an anorexic while she was dancing to keep the weight down. It had been years since she had given up dancing because of injuries, but she was not able to leave behind the disordered eating. She was no longer anorexic, but was obsessed with buying and eating only “organic” foods, and ate a strict microbiotic diet. Going out to eat with her was a nightmare. It was all she ever talked about.
She was also addicted to exercise.
March 8th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Two years ago my dh and I separated for several months. I had no appetite and I started exercising to get into shape and deal with my stress. I lost so much weight so quickly that people worried about me. I didn’t care because I was a fit size four/six. Woo hoo. I still thought I looked fat in pictures. I only ate healthful foods, very little fat, and felt guilty about eating a tiny piece of cake on my own birthday. My exercise addiction escalated to the point where I had a bicycling accident and broke my leg into 45 pieces. Needless to say, I regained 26 pounds when I could no longer offset my bingeing with exercise. There can be too much of a good thing — that’s for sure.