Orthorexia Nervosa: the new eating disorder

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  • PaleoPath4Lyfe
    PaleoPath4Lyfe Posts: 3,161 Member
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    I have a family member that suffers from this. In his quest to become "healthy", he's eliminated so many things from his diet that he's now suffering from extreme osteoporosis and malnutrition.

    And therein lies the difference. One can be obsessive about their diet; Paleo, no/low carb, low cal, no fat, no sugar....whatever but it's not Orthorexia-Nervosa until it affects their health negatively (like this person's family member). People suffering from this are not merely being mindful (obsessively or not) of their food choices/quantities or meticulously calorie counting, they are literally systematically removing so much from their diet that they are starving themselves to death because they don't feel that anything is healthy/clean enough to be in their bodies. I would venture to say that the majority of the people on this site do not have it.

    Yes, exactly.
  • PearlAng
    PearlAng Posts: 681 Member
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    I am no stranger to the world of eating disorders, and I know many people (including myself) who tried to go vegan while in recovery. Vegan is not inherently an unhealthy thing, but when you're only vegan because you want an excuse to deny many "unhealthy" foods, it more of a manifestation of that which you are trying to rid yourself of---your disorder. ON is similar in the way where you only vow to eat "clean and healthy" but it can cause you to take on an unhealthy mindset. So if you can eat clean and healthy in an unrestricted and healthy way, I would not say that's ON.
  • PaleoPath4Lyfe
    PaleoPath4Lyfe Posts: 3,161 Member
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    I just wanted to get your opinion on this. Since all this 'fitspo' stuff started on instagram I couldn't help but think it was actually unhealthy. Some of the pictures/comments are promoting eating NOTHING but whole/healthy foods and exercising excessively.

    I started to follow fitness accounts on instagram and was shocked how many people''s lives were taken over by eating healthy and exercising. Don't get me wrong, I'm a self confessed gym bunny and consider it my hobby, but I have no problem eating a chocolate bar every day with my lunch or going out for food/getting takeaway at the weekend.

    I was thinking to myself this is an eating disorder... yeah it isn't anorexia or bulimia but it's an obsession that rules peoples lives, i was reading one blog where the writer was SO fitness obsessed she would turn down drinks with her friends/meals, even though she had her 'perfect body'.

    I found this post on the blog Chocolate Covered Katie:

    http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2010/03/01/orthorexia-nervosa-the-new-eating-disorder/

    I completely agree that this is a from of eating disorder. I don't want you to think that I'm saying eating healthy and being dedicated is a bad thing, as I am totally into that way of life myself; but when it BECOMES your life even after you've reached your goal weight and you can't enjoy the little things in life then what's the point?

    Would love to know your opinions :)

    Its stupid and just another money maker for them to say people that are very conscience about what they put in their mouth and body is an eating disorder.

    Most Dr's want their patients to be mindful of what goes in their mouth and is digested through their bodies.

    My husband and I eat out within the guidelines of our eating plan, we cook most of our meals, buy the highest quality foods that we can afford and search out healthy ways of living.

    If that is a disorder, I am happy to have it.
    Agreed...if being mindful of what I eat on a daily basis is bad...all I have to say is being fat is bad and now being focused is bad...then what is right? For those of us who have a lot to lose we just cant win. Perhaps its people at their goal weight but even when I reach it I will always be mindful of my food and excercise because I can go right back to being unhealthy very quickly. I know because I did that. I dont see anything wrong with being focused on what one eats and doesnt eat. It is a daily struggle for me and always will be. It doesnt mean I have an eating disorder. It just means my way of life is eating healthy. And I dont see anything wrong with that.

    Sometimes I think people (professionals) just want us to be fat, unhappy and sick. So no matter which way we go someone will be there to say, "Hey, there is something wrong with you."

    My husband and I have to be pretty mindful of what we put in our bodies. His blood pressure is out of control (resistant hypertension) and I have a slew of issues (PCOS, T2 Diabetes, Thyroid issues, Lupus).

    Choosing to Just Eat Real Food and ditch the processed foods is making a world of difference in our health and reducing our inflammation factors.

    We are grown adults who work. We will choose what we put into our bodies. That is our right to do so. At least that is one right that hasn't been taken away from us yet.
  • monstergirl14
    monstergirl14 Posts: 345 Member
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    I think I understand where the writer is coming from, although perhaps different wording would have sufficed. I have anxiety and one of my triggers is my body, and it only started getting a bit worse when I started working out. I began to compare myself to perfect bodies (in my opinion, others can differ) and I became obsessed with working out and healthy eating, and if I strayed even the slightest, I would literally be depressed and feel like a failure. Obviously this is my own doing and I'm working on it every day, and it's a struggle and I recognize it to be a problem, and maybe that's what she's defining?
  • oxers
    oxers Posts: 259 Member
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    Technically, it would fall under EDNOS - not otherwise specified. An obsession with whole, unprocessed foods is only an obsession if it's accompanied by disordered thinking. If it's a control mechanism that dominates the person's life, something they CAN'T deviate from without suffering intense anxiety, then yeah, that would fall under EDNOS. If they CAN, but choose not to, it's just a preference. As for obsession with overexercising, that would actually fall under anorexia athletica - a subcategory of anorexia defined not necessarily by disordered eating but by disordered dedication to calorie deficit. These conditions are very, very serious and can't be diagnosed over an instagram, so it's pretty ****ed up to look at someone's social media website and assume you know whether they're suffering a crippling, life-long compulsion or just really really like their new juicer.

    TL;DR: if you're not a mental health professional, it really isn't your call.
  • Rocbola
    Rocbola Posts: 1,998 Member
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    After reading many comments on here, it seems many people think that restricting certain foods from a diet is orthorexic. I disagree. Being a fruit and veggie eater, or a vegan, or vegetarian, or raw eater is fine, or anyone that eliminates one category of food, as long as you eat enough calories and micro-nutrients from the foods that you do eat. If you are so restrictive, that you start starving, than you have orthorexia.
  • ScifiGirl1986
    ScifiGirl1986 Posts: 104 Member
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    Yeah this is what I was talking about. I'm all for eating whole foods and eating healthy but coming from someone who has had eating issues in the past, if you start denying yourself any 'treats' or 'cheat days' (no matter how rare) it starts to become an obsession. I've seen girls as young as 15 on social media sites obsessing over their diet and exercise, and telling other young girls that they shouldn't be eating pizza or chocolate. Yeah kid shouldn't eat too much pizza and chocolate, but I don't think this is a healthy mindset, a young girl not going out for pizza with her friends because it will ruin her healthy eating?

    If you don't have any history of eating disorders or an obsessive personality than of course there's no issue but it's when something becomes an obsession and affects your day to day life that I think it becomes a problem.

    I have a cousin like that. she's convinced herself that if she eats certain foods--like ketsup that she's going to get a headache, which somehow leads her to believing that it will make her fat. I remember being at a food court with her when she was 10 (she's 14 now) and she criticized the ketsup I put on my burger because ketsup makes a person fat. She's got a whole list of foods (including macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, marinara sauce, store-bought/homemade frosting, and whipped cream) that she will not eat because of her headache/fat theory.
  • kgeyser
    kgeyser Posts: 22,505 Member
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    I would say anytime you have to embarass your kid to refuse a piece of birthday cake that you are medicaly cleared to consume or have a food scale with you at a restaurant...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    If you've ever trimmed the fat on a boneless chicken breast...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    If you'll eat a cake from whole foods but won't eat a salad at mcdonalds...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    Well, I refused birthday cake at the last party my child and I attended, I always trim the fat off my chicken breasts, and cake > fast food salads, so I guess I have orthorexia nervosa. *shrugs*
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    I think there's an obvious and clear difference between choosing to live a healthy lifestyle and having this disorder. Those of you who turn down cake at a birthday party aren't remotely captured by this definition. In fact, the symptoms are very similar to anorexia.

    - Continually cutting out foods that are not "pure"
    - Feeling out of control, disgusting and like a failure if you eat "impure" foods
    - A euphoric feeling of control when eating your chosen "pure" foods
    - Food purity having no strong link to what is actually nutritionally sound
    - Spending the majority of your thought power and waking hours on planning your meals and foods

    etc etc... it's obvious this is far closer to OCD-spectrum disorders with ruminating thoughts and obsessive rituals than being targeted at people who are just eating healthy.

    So, basically I think that sounds like a disorder to me. If you can't stop obsessing over it and think about anything else, it's a disorder. Granted, obsessive personalities could really get obsessed with anything, so maybe there's an argument to be made that it's not worth making a new disorder for everything an obsessive persion gets obsessed with.

    My thoughts exactly.
  • Honeycat89
    Honeycat89 Posts: 149
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    When I went to the WPA conference in 2009, there was a woman presenting a poster on orthorexia nervosa, so this has been in discussion among psychologists for a few years at least now.

    I think the poster who outlined the criteria for the disorder demonstrated the difference best, but maybe think of it this way: Many of us are restricting our calories, but we're not considered anorexic. Why? Because we aren't doing it to a dangerous level, we don't feel crippling anxiety if we go a calorie over our daily goals, etc. Before being diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, a person is seen by a professional and his/her behavior is deemed different than someone restricting calories; the same thing would happen to someone diagnosed with orthorexia nervosa, if accepted as a new eating disorder. It wouldn't be people who choose not to eat cake, or choose to exercise; it is the other aspects like the anxiety and guilt that would determine the diagnosis.

    This explains it quite nicely, some people are missing the point and think eating healthy has been diagnosed as a disorder. It's the feelings and emotions that come with it that make it a disorder. I am no health professional but some people mentioned guilt, anxiety about eating 'unhealthy' foods.
  • Honeycat89
    Honeycat89 Posts: 149
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    Post above my previous one sums it up best.
  • mclgo
    mclgo Posts: 147 Member
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    Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent.
    Epictetus
    Roman (Greek-born) slave & Stoic philosopher (55 AD - 135 AD)
  • Ely82010
    Ely82010 Posts: 1,998 Member
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    I would say anytime you have to embarass your kid to refuse a piece of birthday cake that you are medicaly cleared to consume or have a food scale with you at a restaurant...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    If you've ever trimmed the fat on a boneless chicken breast...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    If you'll eat a cake from whole foods but won't eat a salad at mcdonalds...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    This is bull! (except the scale at a restaurant)

    I don't care for birthday cakes or any kind of cakes or cookies; it has to be a special kind of sweet for me to be willing to try it. And I know that there are many people like me, so refusing to eat cake doesn't equal a disorder.

    I don't like chicken fat or chicken skin so I trim it. I don't have a disorder, just a preference.

    I don't eat cakes from whole foods and if I want a salad, I certainly will not go to McD.
  • PearlAng
    PearlAng Posts: 681 Member
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    I would say anytime you have to embarass your kid to refuse a piece of birthday cake that you are medicaly cleared to consume or have a food scale with you at a restaurant...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    If you've ever trimmed the fat on a boneless chicken breast...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    If you'll eat a cake from whole foods but won't eat a salad at mcdonalds...you might have orthorexia nervosa.

    This is bull! (except the scale at a restaurant)

    I don't care for birthday cakes or any kind of cakes or cookies; it has to be a special kind of sweet for me to be willing to try it. And I know that there are many people like me, so refusing to eat cake doesn't equal a disorder.

    I don't like chicken fat or chicken skin so I trim it. I don't have a disorder, just a preference.

    I don't eat cakes from whole foods and if I want a salad, I certainly will not go to McD.
    BUT there is a difference between refusing cake because you don't like it/aren't hungry for it and refusing it because you're terrified of it and it's "not pure"
  • shivles
    shivles Posts: 468 Member
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    Actually as a recovered anorexic I get this completely, in fact I admit that I probably do it. I've kind of transferred all the habits of anorexia to good diet and training and possibly this is what you've seen with others? I know I obsess over it too much, I know I worry about my macros too much and I avoid certain social situations if it will make it difficult for me to be healthy. I am getting better but old habits die hard and it's much better to obsess over getting your 5 a day and bf% than how thin you can get and how little you can eat.
  • Lawngirl296
    Lawngirl296 Posts: 46 Member
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    In 2012 my daughter wanted to eat clean and exercise which I excouraged, what could be wrong with that right? Wrong, depending on the person's personality like anything else it became an addiction that totally consummed her life. I had never even heard of this until I did my researched eating disorders and came upon this and thought BINGO...that's what it is. She is still struggling with it today, though she cannot exercise like she used to due to work commitments that require much more time than before. Sadly the food still consumes her and I fear that it always will.
    Looking around the gym it dawned on me how many young girls I see there night after night on the same machine doing crazy amounts of cardio from the time I get there until I leave and who knows how long they were there and will stay after I'm gone. Thin girls who don't need to do hours worth of cardio at least, go out with your friends, have a burger and beer....life is too short.~!!
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
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    That's not exactly "new", unless it is now a recognized diagnosis, which would be new.

    I would fit some of the criteria, but not enough to actually have it. I avoid many foods because I think they may be unhealthy. It doesn't control or ruin my life, though. It is, after all, just food and there are plenty of other foods to eat.
  • livelovetravelxx
    livelovetravelxx Posts: 27
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    I completely agree!
    I find that constantly obsessing about calories too is an eating disorder, i.e not allowing yourself a chocolate bar now and again. Or eating one and then exercising excessively to lose the calories you just ate...
    I follow someone on instagram who did this, ate about ten jaffa cakes, and then ended up exercising excessively to burn those 400+ calories off!
  • livelovetravelxx
    livelovetravelxx Posts: 27
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    I of course don't judge these people. I'v been through it, and sometimes still do!
    I keep having to tell my boyfriend that if I get too obsessive to knock some sense in to me...

    Three years ago, I went through a Eating disorder where I went from counting 1500 cals a day to 1200 then right down to 500..and anytime I ate something "bad" I would really beat my self up. I wouldn't go out for dinner with friends either.....luckily I knocked some sense into myself
  • favoritenut
    favoritenut Posts: 217 Member
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    I think my boss must have this, He has lost over 100lbs and now tells everyone how much he exercises and what he eats, he even brings stuff to restaurants like dressing for his salad and such, he won't ever eat anything that anyone brings into the office, even if its fruit or somewhat healthy, I know he is afraid of gaining all that weight back, so I understand, but it sure gets irritating that he is always talking about it!

    I don't see that as a disorder either................Irritating as it is, I believe he is very proud of his accomplishment and wants everyone to know about it.

    I bring my own salad dressing many places that don't make their own dressings. I no longer eat a bottled salad dressing. If a restaurant doesn't make theirs daily, then I bring my own.

    I don't eat what others bring into the office either..............especially when they say I made "XXX" low carb or "paleo" just for you.

    I don't know what ingredients went into making what they brought in, so I graciously decline and say I am not hungry at the time, but thank you for thinking of me.

    I have had too many people tell me that ingredients in foods they made were this or that or they don't understand what gluten free is and then I end up with a major pain flare for days on end.

    It is just easier and healthier for me to stay away.

    I know he is very proud and he should be, but he is always talking about it, which means, business has revolved around his losing the weight. When customers come in, he will go on about it, when vendors come in, he goes on about it. It is like he talks about nothing else but his diet. I guess I'm not sure if that means he is obsessed or not, but when he talks about it to everyone that comes thru door.... and unfortunately he has scared off some customers because of it.

    and you're right, there is nothing wrong with not eating what people bring in, but I mean like a vegie tray or fruit people bring in because they know others are trying to eat healthier, he won't even eat that. I don't personally eat stuff brought in anymore either unless its a banana or an apple of veggies. And the bringing your own salad dressing, I guess I can understand that too, I guess what ever it takes. Like I said I know he is afraid of gaining it all back, I know from experience that happens way too often.

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