Orthorexia- When healthy eating becomes an obsession.
Who is at risk for Orthorexia?
How to get help for Orthorexia.
What is the treatment for Orthorexia?
What are the health risks of Orthorexia?
And as it turns out, there's a term for this condition: Orthorexia nervosa.
One eating disorder called Orthorexia was only described for the first time in the 1990s.
People with Orthorexia are obsessed with eating'pure' food
and often start with a desire to become generally healthier.
People with Orthorexia are typically less concerned about cutting
calories than with the perceived quality of their food.
If you think you may be leaning on the side of Orthorexia what can you do about it?
In part because it's not in the DSM-V, we don't have a ton of available data about Orthorexia.
Meanwhile Orthorexia, which was first defined in 1997, is
described as a'pathological fixation on the consumption of appropriate and healthy food'.
As with other eating disorders, you don't have Orthorexia unless your eating is having a significant impact on your emotional well-being.
In fact, people with Orthorexia are often also obsessed with being in perfect physical shape,
so may be extremely fit and look very healthy.
Though many think of eating
disorders as a problem affecting young women, Orthorexia appears to be experienced equally by men and women, the
study found.
Though less well-known than anorexia nervosa or bulimia- and not as well-documented-
a new study review says Orthorexia can also have serious emotional and physical consequences.
People with Orthorexia also may experience digestive dysfunction, particularly
if they reintroduce any foods that aren't included in their strict diets, as well as"brain fog and mood swings," adds Mentore.
My psychological interest in this matter came from the fact that it appeared to me that the dog owners who insisted on a
raw food diet for their dogs might be showing some form of Orthorexia nervosa.