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Eating Healthy Food Is Now Considered A Disease!
Eating disorder charities are reporting a rise in the number of people suffering from what they believe is a serious psychological condition characterised by an obsession with healthy eating.
The condition, orthorexia nervosa, affects equal numbers of men and women, but sufferers tend to be aged over 30, middle-class and well-educated. The condition was named by a Californian doctor, Steven Bratman, in 1997, and is described as a “fixation on righteous eating”. Until a few years ago, there were so few sufferers that doctors usually included them under the catch-all label of “Ednos” – eating disorders not otherwise recognised. Now, experts say, orthorexics take up such a significant proportion of the Ednos group that they should be treated separately.
“I am definitely seeing significantly more orthorexics than just a few years ago,” said Ursula Philpot, chair of the British Dietetic Association’s mental health group. “Other eating disorders focus on quantity of food but orthorexics can be overweight or look normal. They are 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’.”
Orthorexics commonly have rigid rules around eating. Refusing to touch sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods is just the start of their diet restrictions. Any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives are also out.
The obsession about which foods are “good” and which are “bad” means orthorexics can end up malnourished. Their dietary restrictions commonly cause sufferers to feel proud of their “virtuous” behaviour even if it means that eating becomes so stressful their personal relationships can come under pressure and they become socially isolated.
“The issues underlying orthorexia are often the same as anorexia and the two conditions can overlap but orthorexia is very definitely a distinct disorder,” said Philpot. “Those most susceptible are middle-class, well-educated people who read about food scares in the papers, research them on the internet, and have the time and money to source what they believe to be purer alternatives.”
Deanne Jade, founder of the National Centre for Eating Disorders, said: “There is a fine line between people who think they are taking care of themselves by manipulating their diet and those who have orthorexia. I see people around me who have no idea they have this disorder. I see it in my practice and I see it among my friends and colleagues.”
Jade believes the condition is on the increase because “modern society has lost its way with food”. She said: “It’s everywhere, from the people who think it’s normal if their friends stop eating entire food groups, to the trainers in the gym who [promote] certain foods to enhance performance, to the proliferation of nutritionists, dieticians and naturopaths [who believe in curing problems through entirely natural methods such as sunlight and massage].
“And just look in the bookshops – all the diets that advise eating according to your blood type or metabolic rate. This is all grist for the mill to those looking for proof to confirm or encourage their anxieties around food.”
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Ange,
This has very little to do with capitalism. This concept of controlling the population is really a socialist or communist ideal. True capitalism would just let you do what you want to do, as long as you buy!
Cheers!
Our science has changed. I.e. Quantum Physics. What was then isn’t now. Why would I microwave food or cook it to death and lose all the nutrients. What is the point of making the body work so hard to digest foods that hardly have any nutrients in them at all. To each his own but we all know raw foods are the most nutrious foods available to feed the human body. Ok going crazy I can understand. Think about it. It’s that simple…
Believe me I see and I’ve seen it for a long time.Too bad doctors don’t have natural health degrees as a compliment to their doctorates.Doctors are just pawns of the pharmaceutical industry!
Sarah, your description of dis-ease as “the result of our minds (what we’ve been conditioned to believe) going against our hearts (that which we know instinctively to be true)” is PERFECT!
Inner conflict is finally being recognized as the true cause of illness (the only exception being physical trauma). Your definition sums it up beautifully.
Gale,
I’m sure you must understand that the people who frequent this website place their health foremost in their life and spend as much time as they feel is necessary to learn about and practice effective health maintenance. Our allopathic medical system in the developed world is symptom-oriented and fails in every way to prevent disease and – worse – refuses to acknowledge the importance of good food choices to health maintenance. Allopathic “health care” (actually sick care) workers are completely oblivious to the dangers of toxins in the food supply while those in government responsible for protecting us from food adulterants are underfunded, understaffed, undermotivated and operating under a system forged of conflict of interest. Meanwhile, the dispassionate practice of free enterprise yields a food supply that is laced with toxins of every conceivable description. Food suppliers operate unchecked and an undereducated public has now fallen prey to their greed-induced concoctions. Chronic disease is the inevitable result. Look around you. Obesity, diabetes, kidney diseases, liver diseases, cardio-vascular diseases, cancers, bone diseases, arthritis, MS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s… the list of nutrient insufficiency- or toxin-related diseases is seemingly endless. These are all diseases of so-called developed, industrialized countries. We know why. Hang out here. Learn what to fear. You’ll last a lot longer… as long as your colleagues don’t throw you in the loony bin for orthorexics.
Well, thank you! Yes, I believe inner conflict to be the true cause of disease, even in the case of physical trauma, which I believe happens as a result of our inner state. We attract into our experience that which we are creating at some level, consciously or not, even when it’s something that happens “to” us, like an accident. Whether or not this is “true” is actually irrelevant, since taking responsibility and ownership of our situation, in and of itself, empowers us to become active in our healing. I know this may be hard to conceive of, especially in the case of children, but this is my feeling about how our universe works.
it’s the psychologists who think this stuff up who are sick. true, obsession comes in many forms. just as true, it makes sense to pay attention to the quality of your food. this is potentially prone to abuse… hey, better arrest senators harkin and grassley for starters, they are both proponents of healthy foods, wathch their diets and don’t eat certain things. oh, and they take vitamins. calling valid concerns “anxiety” is a nice labelling trick. get real and read the physical science. the pathetic attempts to marginalize health concerns as a disease is beyond annoying.
it’s the psychologists who think this stuff up who are sick. true, obsession comes in many forms. just as true, it makes sense to pay attention to the quality of your food. this is potentially prone to abuse… hey, better arrest senators harkin and grassley for starters, they are both proponents of healthy foods, watch their diets and don’t eat certain things. oh, and they take vitamins. calling valid concerns “anxiety” is a nice labelling trick. get real and read the physical science. the pathetic attempts to marginalize health concerns as a disease is beyond annoying.
Karma is the reason we have experiences. We are supposed to learn from them to grow spiritually. Full growth is the state of Enlightenment, also called “moksha.” Meditation helps achieve that state of full consciousness. Even in the state of Enlightenment we can have karma reach us but it no longer has a negative effect. It’s the paying of a debt that we created in a past life through some action or inaction.
You have got to be kidding!!! What ignorance to call eating healthy food —- and knowing what the body needs— and — what food contributes to disease–so as to avoid it- a sickness! IG- NOR- ANT!!!!! I invite you to study the body and some basic principles of life and nutrition, biology etc. to become informed, also to try it yourself and check out how good it feels to feel good! I’m astounded.
On one hand, mental health in America is so horribly neglected by the state right now that it’s laughable to worry about our rights being taken away.
Right now, I take calling people mentally ill who are trying to be healthy as an insult, and nothing more than that.
However I do not disclose my diet to most people, and I stay in the “closet”. Unless the government has the manpower to monitor what every citizen is eating, and it doesn’t, keeping a low profile would be the best course of action.
And my fingernails have never looked so pretty.
This article HAS to be a JOKE — hasn’t it? Because, IMO, if what it says is for real, this idea of classifying a desire for “healthy eating” as a psychological illness is itself INSANE.
And then what would be next? What this current O-Administration has been doing with “healthcare” and other equally damaging assaults on our Constitutional freedoms seems to be structured in such a way as to, in essence, automatically classify just about every American (and every conscientious medical professional) as a potential criminal; so what’s next? Classify conscientious mothers as being “orthobabyrexic” and thus in need of state-mandated drugs and vaccinations? Classify the unemployed, down-and-out average American as being “orthojoblessrexic” and thus in need of state-mandated untested-vaccine-shots and coerced housing at a FEMA camp?
Or would it be to create a brand-new, catchall, category — jumping over all the small stuff — so as to classify EVERYONE WHO ASSIDUOUSLY SEEKS TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH ALL THE LAWS as being “ortholegalorexic”, thereby subjecting all those “mentally challenged recalcitrants” to have their eyelids held open by tape while, somewhat like in the film “A Clockwork Orange”, they are forced to watch seemingly endless films of Ben Bernanke gleefully dancing in a tutu as he smilingly and repeatedly presses a computer-key, the one that, as they can see on his monitor, keeps creating more and more trillions of nonexistent dollars, as, in the scene’s background, caricatures of corporate thugs, using Congressmen as battering-rams, break into the banks and bleed the country’s finances dry?
Orthorexia? Is this what O meant when he tutu’d, er, touted, “Change we can believe in”?
This is the FIRST time I’ve heard of this disorder, other than having been married to a man who has had it for the past 33 years.
And for those of you who fear you may have this disorder, the REAL issue isn’t whether or not you’re eating healthy foods and making healthy food choices. The real problem with this disorder appears when you rant and rave at your spouse for an hour as to whether or not he/she should purchase a box of crackers, or 2 zucchini instead of one. If you’ve done this, and think it’s normal, then you probably have Orhorexia!
While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to eat healthier and to keep physically fit, if you find yourself wanting to exercise at least 4 hours per day, and weigh yourself at least 3-5 times a day (minimum) or you’ve actually thrown out all the foods in your refrigerator that your spouse just bought because you don’t think it’s “good” enough for the family, you’ve got this disorder. Anytime you dig food back out of the trashcan that your loved one just threw away (even if it’s outdated, but you think it looks good) then you’ve got this disorder.
Yes!