Othorexia Nervosa?

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  • KatieJane83
    KatieJane83 Posts: 2,002 Member
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    Very interesting. I'd never heard of it either. Could definitely see it happening, just like any other eating disorder.
  • taso42
    taso42 Posts: 8,980 Member
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    Yes, orthorexia is a real thing. Though I wouldn't necessarily try to learn about it from a Fox news article referencing an MTV show.
  • lisakyle_11
    lisakyle_11 Posts: 420 Member
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    interesting.... exactly with Taso regarding what to really take from Fox News Network - gah.
  • ironanimal
    ironanimal Posts: 5,922 Member
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    From Wikipedia;
    Orthorexia nervosa (also known as orthorexia) is a non-medically recognized term[a] first used by Steven Bratman to characterize people who develop an obsession with avoiding foods perceived to be unhealthy.[1][2] Orthorexia nervosa is believed to be a mental disorder.[3] Bratman claims that in rare cases, this focus may turn into a fixation so extreme that it can lead to severe malnutrition or even death.[4] Even in less severe cases, the attempt to follow a diet that cannot provide adequate nourishment is said to lower self-esteem as the orthorexics blame themselves rather than their diets for their constant hunger and the resulting cravings for forbidden foods. [5]

    In 2009, Ursula Philpot, chair of the British Dietetic Association and senior lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University,[6] described people with orthorexia nervosa to The Guardian as being "solely concerned with the quality of the food they put in their bodies, refining and restricting their diets according to their personal understanding of which foods are truly 'pure'." Compared to other eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, whereby people "focus on quantity of food".[3]

    The term orthorexia derives from the Greek ορθο- (ortho, "right" or "correct"), and όρεξις (orexis, "appetite"), literally meaning a correct diet. It was introduced in 1997 by Colorado Doctor of Medicine Steven Bratman, to be used as a parallel with other eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthorexia_nervosa

    http://www.orthorexia.com/
    http://www.eatingdisordershelpguide.com/orthorexia.html
    http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/bodyimage/orthorexia.html
  • Drawberry
    Drawberry Posts: 104 Member
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    Is it any surprise that people become so obsessed and filled with frightening beliefs when the media is telling us everything in the world is going to kill us? Every fad diet on the planet totes that eating this but not that will make you lose weight while another contradicts that entirely. It's no wonder that people become obsessed with all of these scare-tactic and inaccurate facts thrown at them.
  • PercivalHackworth
    PercivalHackworth Posts: 1,437 Member
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    I think we are a lot here suffering from orthorexia, unfortunately me. It often a side effect of different things, including the feeling of changing your lifestyle and making a vicious association between your "old" life and certain food, (that you would hold responsible for that in fact)
    You end being nazi about the food you allow yourself to eat, for the record, it took me almost 3 years to buy butter :laugh:
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,080 Member
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    Not to mention that every obessive thought now has a medical condition named after it. I'm not making light of this as an actual disorder, just that we all have to fight doing things to the extreme.
  • threnners
    threnners Posts: 175 Member
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    My ex mother in law has a scorching case of it.
  • carlosdon
    carlosdon Posts: 125
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    I've heard about this and i've thought about this before and probably tick the box, i mean it interferes even becomes consuming with my life this food and exericse even if I enjoy both that doesn't mean it's no an obsession and obsessions are never healthy. still i'd take this over any of the other eating disorders, at least with this one I have some level of control be it limited.
  • WhitneyAnnabelle
    WhitneyAnnabelle Posts: 724 Member
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    They are trying to get it put into the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The time when it gets really serious is when people get to the point that they can't eat anything because they don't believe anything is nutritious/"clean"...and obviously the over-exercise part.
  • Awkward30
    Awkward30 Posts: 1,927 Member
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    I watched a documentary on female bodybuilders, and most of them were anorexics... they just kind of re-focus their obsession.
  • carlosdon
    carlosdon Posts: 125
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    They are trying to get it put into the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). The time when it gets really serious is when people get to the point that they can't eat anything because they don't believe anything is nutritious/"clean"...and obviously the over-exercise part.

    i'm more on the over exercising to be honest, but i suppose cutting out chips, chocolate, crisps, cakes, alcohol and such would probably qualify me for the nutriticious bit. mind i still eat alot of stuff with empty calories and besides my bipolar disorder creates much more problems!
  • carld256
    carld256 Posts: 855 Member
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    Funny how everyone points to vegans when they talk about this. No one seems to think there's anything wrong with the hordes of low-carbers who eat almost nothing but meat and other animal products.
  • carlosdon
    carlosdon Posts: 125
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    I watched a documentary on female bodybuilders, and most of them were anorexics... they just kind of re-focus their obsession.

    yeah we have a c-list celeb like that over here called Jordie Marsh.

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