Orthorexia

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  • gym_rat
    gym_rat Posts: 94
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    Am I missing something? 68lbs? Isn't it calories in vs calories out? If she was only eating "healthy" food and weighed that little, obviously she wasn't eating enough.

    I guess it's just another kind of obsession. Some people are addicted to fast food and others are crazy addicted to health food and terrified of anything that falls outside that category. Interesting article.
  • kerrilucko
    kerrilucko Posts: 3,852 Member
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    thing is she wasn't eating healthy... she was eating "little more than uncooked broccoli and cauliflower".
  • drvvork
    drvvork Posts: 1,162
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    Sounds to me more like a phobia rather than an eating disorder. :flowerforyou:
  • McFatterton
    McFatterton Posts: 1,358 Member
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    Sounds to me more like a phobia rather than an eating disorder. :flowerforyou:

    That was more my take on it too.....too afraid of what may or may not be in the food that they consume. But, then again, eating disorders could be looked at as a type of phobia too I suppose - afraid to gain weight, not fit in, look or feel overweight....etc.
  • courtney_love2001
    courtney_love2001 Posts: 1,468 Member
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    There was a guy like this in my class. He also exercised like crazy. He's now in rehab :(
  • LittleSpy
    LittleSpy Posts: 6,754 Member
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    How does a 5'4" skin covered skeleton not weigh more than 68 pounds? Something's wrong -- that has to be a typo, right?

    Edit: I know bones are relatively light. But, then add in all the fluid and any muscle and organs and... I guess I just don't see how it's possible.
  • TheMaidOfAstolat
    TheMaidOfAstolat Posts: 3,222 Member
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    Sounds to me more like a phobia rather than an eating disorder. :flowerforyou:

    That was more my take on it too.....too afraid of what may or may not be in the food that they consume. But, then again, eating disorders could be looked at as a type of phobia too I suppose - afraid to gain weight, not fit in, look or feel overweight....etc.

    FYI: most anorexics do not have a fear of becoming fat or are trying to fit in. I's about control. Being able to know exactly what is put in your own body is a control issue (I struggled with anorexia for many years).
    This girl is anorexic (but it stems from the fact that she changed her diet to the extreme because of 'fads'. The raw food craze is fine, as long as it's done properly). This girl had no knowledge of a proper lifestyle reguarding raw foods. The fact that her doctor told her to eat healthy without finding out what she was eating and how often is dispicable. Especially if she already had that low amount of weight. Her doctor needs to be sued.
  • CrystalT
    CrystalT Posts: 862 Member
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    It is an eating disorder by the definition. An eating disorder is any kind of psychological disorder that causes you to eat too little or too much. So any phobia that causes you to eat too little would be an eating disorder.

    I would also like to point out that eating disorders are not limited to eating too little. I would imagine that there are people on this website who have undiagnosed eating disorders. Yet one more thing that people are lacking education about.
  • drvvork
    drvvork Posts: 1,162
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    ... I would imagine that there are people on this website who have undiagnosed eating disorders. Yet one more thing that people are lacking education about.

    Unfortunately, this is probably true... :flowerforyou:
  • fitinyoga14
    fitinyoga14 Posts: 448 Member
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    this article sounds like b.s. First of all, the wording makes it sound like if you are only eating healthy foods, then you have a problem. how can healthy foods be unhealthy? they fail to point out that eating broccoli wasn't the problem. it seems to me that 'orthorexia' should not exist. if you 'only eat healthy foods', then you will generally be healthy and there will be no need for a diagnoses. if you refuse to eat anything more than brocoli, then you have annorexia.

    the problem with that girl was that her doctor never asked her HOW MUCH she ate. isn't that an obvious question to ask?
  • Phoenix_Rising
    Phoenix_Rising Posts: 11,417 Member
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    this article sounds like b.s. First of all, the wording makes it sound like if you are only eating healthy foods, then you have a problem. how can healthy foods be unhealthy? they fail to point out that eating broccoli wasn't the problem. it seems to me that 'orthorexia' should not exist. if you 'only eat healthy foods', then you will generally be healthy and there will be no need for a diagnoses. if you refuse to eat anything more than brocoli, then you have annorexia.

    the problem with that girl was that her doctor never asked her HOW MUCH she ate. isn't that an obvious question to ask?

    Even if she ate her own weight in broccoli every day, she would still be malnourished, assuming she didn't supplement, so "only eating healthy foods" doesn't mean you are getting a balanced diet required for bodily function. I don't eat a lot of meat, so I try to make up for it in other areas to maintain iron levels in my blood.

    I believe the fixation on her eating -- the obsession -- is technically the disorder here. She had a fear of unhealthy eating which grew out of hand, limiting what she was comfortable eating to raw veggies (so the article insinuates).
  • paddlemom
    paddlemom Posts: 682 Member
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    The fact that her doctor told her to eat healthy without finding out what she was eating and how often is dispicable. Especially if she already had that low amount of weight.

    So true! Doctors need to understand their patient before making off the cuff comments...My MIL was told that her blood pressure was a little high, so she should watch her sodium. She was generally quite slim and ate a well balanced healthy diet, but could probably have benefited from watching out for high sodium foods. Instead, she took no salt to such an extreme (even baking her own salt free bread), that she almost ended up in the hospital from elevated potassium levels. But, hey, she was following Dr's orders right??
  • toots99
    toots99 Posts: 3,794 Member
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    Saving to read later. :smile:
  • McFatterton
    McFatterton Posts: 1,358 Member
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    FYI: most anorexics do not have a fear of becoming fat or are trying to fit in. I's about control. Being able to know exactly what is put in your own body is a control issue (I struggled with anorexia for many years).

    I'm sorry to hear of your struggle and I hope you didn't take offense to what I said. I was directing that comment in the sense that people who are uneducated about eating disorders might view them as a phobia. Although I've never personally battled with the disease, I have researched it and have had close friends deal with it. I should have been more clear - I apologize.
  • kicklikeaGIRL
    kicklikeaGIRL Posts: 867 Member
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    FYI: most anorexics do not have a fear of becoming fat or are trying to fit in. I's about control. Being able to know exactly what is put in your own body is a control issue (I struggled with anorexia for many years).

    I'm sorry to hear of your struggle and I hope you didn't take offense to what I said. I was directing that comment in the sense that people who are uneducated about eating disorders might view them as a phobia. Although I've never personally battled with the disease, I have researched it and have had close friends deal with it. I should have been more clear - I apologize.

    I think each individual who goes through anorexia has an individual "trigger" that keeps them in that situation, you know? I'm not trying to be argumentative at all, and I completely agree that many anorexics are that way because it is one of the only things in their life they can control, or they enjoy the control they have, etc, etc.. However, I know for me (I battled anorexia for 2 years, tried to recover for 4) my fear was the fact that I would get fat. Honestly for me it wasn't really a control issue, other than I wanted to control my body so it wouldn't get fat. Because I feared that whatever morsel of food I would put in my mouth I would gain weight. So I guess for me it was a combination of fear & control.

    As far as the article goes... man I don't know. Hopefully this doctor did inquire about the amount of calories she was intaking, and if she was anything like me back in the day- she might have lied about it. Who knows, I just hope that this doctor would see that she wasn't healthy and she didn't know she wasn't healthy. From everything she believed, it is obvious she didn't understand by what he meant to "be healthy". She thought she was healthy because she was avoiding foods she considered bad. I can see this being an eating disorder, especially since it can be such a huge obsession. I know I've seen eating disorders gradually move from one to another... Like how anorexia can transition into bullemia. And anorexia transition into Reverse Bullemia (is that the name? when you exercise all of your calories off?) I think this orthorexia could very well transition into anorexia, and maybe that is what happened?

    All I know for sure is....this is a sad sad story. I cringe with sadness anytime I hear an Eating Order story. This girl was so extremely small and unhealthy...and, assuming from my own experience, that she wasn't very happy.
  • TheMaidOfAstolat
    TheMaidOfAstolat Posts: 3,222 Member
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    FYI: most anorexics do not have a fear of becoming fat or are trying to fit in. I's about control. Being able to know exactly what is put in your own body is a control issue (I struggled with anorexia for many years).

    I'm sorry to hear of your struggle and I hope you didn't take offense to what I said. I was directing that comment in the sense that people who are uneducated about eating disorders might view them as a phobia. Although I've never personally battled with the disease, I have researched it and have had close friends deal with it. I should have been more clear - I apologize.

    No need to apologize. I know many people who have battled with EDs and people who condem them because it's 'not a real problem'. Throughout high school I was the girl to go to whenever someone needed an in person interview for either ED's or animal rights (for reports). LOL.
  • TheMaidOfAstolat
    TheMaidOfAstolat Posts: 3,222 Member
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    FYI: most anorexics do not have a fear of becoming fat or are trying to fit in. I's about control. Being able to know exactly what is put in your own body is a control issue (I struggled with anorexia for many years).

    I'm sorry to hear of your struggle and I hope you didn't take offense to what I said. I was directing that comment in the sense that people who are uneducated about eating disorders might view them as a phobia. Although I've never personally battled with the disease, I have researched it and have had close friends deal with it. I should have been more clear - I apologize.

    I think each individual who goes through anorexia has an individual "trigger" that keeps them in that situation, you know? I'm not trying to be argumentative at all, and I completely agree that many anorexics are that way because it is one of the only things in their life they can control, or they enjoy the control they have, etc, etc.. However, I know for me (I battled anorexia for 2 years, tried to recover for 4) my fear was the fact that I would get fat. Honestly for me it wasn't really a control issue, other than I wanted to control my body so it wouldn't get fat. Because I feared that whatever morsel of food I would put in my mouth I would gain weight. So I guess for me it was a combination of fear & control.

    I agree. It can be triggered by other things...but at some point it boils down to control. The reason I became anorexic was due to the fact that my grandfather had just died, a friend commited suicide, and I had no control over anything in my life and food is something that is controlable.
    Sorry to hear that you also have suffered, it's a long recovery process but with each day we become stronger. :smile:

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