Orthorexia - do you have it?

bcattoes

I think these questions are kind of BS but these are the questions I answered yes to.

--Are you planning tomorrow's menu today?
Yes, because I prefer not to go shopping everyday. I usually plan my meals a week at a time plus it helps with my budget.

--Have you become stricter with yourself?
Yes, that's how you lose weight, right?

--Do you skip foods you once enjoyed in order to eat the "right" foods?
Yes, I used to eat pasta everyday, can't do that anymore, and I still would if I didn't become morbidly obese.

By these standards I have a mild case of orthorexia.

You "could" have a mild case. But you have to think about the questions in the context they would be asked.

If you haven't cut pasta from your diet totally, then the answer to #3 would be "sometimes" because you don't always skip it. You are limiting that food, not eliminating it. Also, I don't think cutting calories would count in becoming stricter with yourself in this case. The disease has to do with cutting certain foods that are known to be healthy from your diet because you think they are unhealthy. For example, saying 'I'm going to eat less pasta because it's preventing me from maintaining a healthy weight' is unlikely to be a symptom, but saying 'I'm never going to eat pasta because it's made from wheat or is a processed food and that makes it unhealthy' might be a symptom.

wyodawn

My ex-boyfriend was this way and had me on the same road. It totally was a mental thing with him, and also a control thing. He insisted I eat that same way. I would occasionally sneak off and inhale a grilled cheese, which felt like major rebellion at the time. As a former anorexic, it was not a healthy path for me to be on, as it felt just like the excessive restrictions I had placed on myself before. I am still vegetarian, and have been healthily so for 22 years, but I felt very unhealthy and became underweight when I restricted my diet in so many ways.

SoDamnHungry

Thanks! I know someone with this an I had forgotten the term.

Prahasaurus

It's a major problem, and I'm sure you'll all be hearing about it more and more. It actually impacted - severely - someone quite close to me. She started by eating mainly organic foods, then became an avid alternative medicine proponent for any illness. It all came down to diet in her mind, anyway. It gradually progressed to having various pains, nausea, etc. when not eating "proper" foods. In the end, her diet consisted of organic broccoli, cauliflower, and onions. She weighed 34 kilos (75 lbs), and was close to death. Of course she refused psychological help, since "western science" was a sham, in cahoots with whomever to hide the truth about the poisonous food we're all consuming.

Only tough love saved her. Her family and friends finally just said that if she wants to die, she can go ahead and die. We all stopped enabling her mental illness. We told her we're just going to wait until she goes into a coma, and then put her on proper IV's in the hospital. But she was on her own to feed herself, etc. until she went into the coma. We were not going to do anything for her any longer. In her weakened state, this was not trivial. She slowly snapped out of it - decided she wanted to live - and began to discover grilled chicken breast would not kill her, rice was not the devil, sugar was not a global conspiracy, etc...

She's far from 100%, but her diet is now more or less borderline sane. She's gained back a lot of weight. And she recently started working again.

This is the short version. There was so much more hell along the way. A terrible, terrible, mental illness. Be very careful.

--P

wyodawn

That's a very sad story. I'm glad to hear she trying to recover. It's hard to dish out that kind of tough love.