"Orthorexia Nervosa Symptoms"
Orthorexia Nervosa is an unrecognized eating disorder
in which the person becomes obsessed with eating healthy foods.
Whereas recognized eating disorders like anorexia
deal with the quantity of food,
orthorexics care about the quality of their food.
Many researchers have raised questions about the validity
of orthorexia as an entity, but I always try to give the benefit of the doubt.
A medical case report was published on orthorexia in a critical care journal
about eating disorder emergencies. OK, I'm listening.
So they're like talking about cases of bona fide eating disorders,
like this woman with anorexia collapsing after self-induced vomiting and laxatives
after years of throat and rectal bleeding.
I mean that is indeed a tragic eating disorder emergency.
OK, so what's their orthorexic case like?
A 53-year-old man who had triple bypass two years ago comes in for a check-up.
His physician recommends seeing a dietitian since his BMI is down
to like 18.5, which is right on the cut-off for being underweight.
He's evidently been eating so healthy he's lost a significant amount of weight.
He states that since his diagnosis of coronary heart disease
and high cholesterol, he only eats natural and organic foods.
Therefore, he probably has a psychiatric illness.
He clearly is preoccupied with food
and judges others based on their food choices,
when in fact he may very well have been saving his own life.
I mean to me, the craziest thing this guy did was get a triple bypass.
I mean imagine lying on a psychiatrist's couch and being like:
Yeah, I know I could switch to bean burritos, but I'd rather pay someone
to slice my chest open with a knife, maybe saw my breastbone in half,
put me at risk for stroking out, you know, instead of
dealing with the underlying cause. What do you think, doc?
Then we could see some orthorexics becoming evangelical as they share
their feelings of disgust or disappointment towards their family,
friends, and even children for their "normal" food choices.
I mean it's bad enough they care about their own health,
but caring about their family and friends, their children?
Off to the funny farm you go.
I mean it's not like what we eat is the #1 cause of death in the United States
or anything, killing hundreds of thousands more Americans every year
than cigarettes. Oh, wait, it is.
And also the #1 cause of disability.
But you may have a mental illness if you're disappointed
that your kids are eating multi-colored marshmallows for breakfast.
If you recognize these warning signs, what should you do?
You should confront the person.
I know it's not easy, but if you see someone obsessively trying to avoid
unhealthy foods—and worse, trying to get others to do the same—
then confront them. The possibility of helping them save their
own life far outweighs uncomfortable emotions.
The irony, of course, is that they're trying to save your life.
Imagine if you were able to talk Mr. Triple Bypass out of
his healthy eating obsession. You'd probably kill him.
To his credit, even Steven Bratman, the guy who coined the term orthorexia,
has backed off, saying that he never intended to propose
a new eating disorder. As an alternative medicine practitioner,
he just wanted his patients to relax their dietary corset and live a little.
I mean where did people get this idea that he was trying to coin the name
for a novel eating disorder?
I mean if you go back to his original article, he just said he was trying
to coin the name for a novel eating disorder, an eating disorder
he saved himself from. Saved from the doom of his
eternal health food addiction with the help of tacos, pizza, and a milkshake.
One of the directors of the Yale Center for Eating Disorders is skeptical.
We've never had anybody come into our clinic with orthorexia,
and I've been working in this field for at least 20 years.
Without research to back his theory, Bratman is simply another guy
trying to make a buck off the health-conscious public.
They invent some new term, a new diet, a solution to a problem
that doesn't even exist. The burden should fall to the authors
to prove that what they're saying is correct
before they start unleashing advice on the public.