Have You Heard of Orthorexia?

I freely (and gladly) admit that I’m not an all-knowing person, but I thought I had heard of every eating disorder. 

Wrong. 

It turns out that I’m am woefully ignorant of some “new” EDs (or at least finally named/discovered ones) including orthorexia.

What is orthorexia?  I’m glad you asked…

On his (now un-maintained) website, Dr. Steven Bratman, M.D., author of Health Food Junkies explains the condition:

“It’s great to eat healthy food, and most of us could benefit by paying a little more attention to what we eat. However, some people have the opposite problem: they take the concept of healthy eating to such an extreme that it becomes an obsession. I call this state of mind orthorexia nervosa: literally, ‘fixation on righteous eating.’”

Wow. 

I’ve actually done this periodically (post-anorexia), under the guise of “being healthy”.  And I usually stopped the behavior when I realized that it was making it too hard to socialize or enjoy activities that involved food or eating.  

Could my original eating disorder have morphed into orthorexia?  It’s entirely possible… and given my “all or nothing” personality, it seems suspiciously likely. 

Of course, I wanted to find out even more about this disorder, so I jumped to the WebMD site and found an interesting article from November 17, 2000 entitled Orthorexia: Good Diets Gone Bad.  In the piece, author Jeanie L. Davis gives a great deal of information about orthorexia, including this informative questionnaire:

“So what constitutes orthorexia?

• Are you spending more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food?
• Are you planning tomorrow’s menu today?
• Is the virtue you feel about what you eat more important than the pleasure you receive from eating it?
• Has the quality of your life decreased as the quality of your diet increased?
• Have you become stricter with yourself?
• Does your self-esteem get a boost from eating healthy? Do you look down on others who don’t eat this way?
• Do you skip foods you once enjoyed in order to eat the “right” foods?
• Does your diet make it difficult for you to eat anywhere but at home, distancing you from friends and family.
• Do you feel guilt or self-loathing when you stray from your diet?
• When you eat the way you’re supposed to, do you feel in total control?

If you answered yes to two or three of these questions, you may have a mild case of orthorexia. Four or more means that you need to relax more when it comes to food. If all these items apply to you, you have become obsessed with food. “

Double wow.

I can honestly say that I’ve experienced orthorexia in mild and moderate forms.  Yikes.  Now that’s a little scary, especially for someone who considers herself “recovered” from an ED.

So…

Does orthorexia ring a bell with anyone else out there?  Do you see yourself in these descriptions?