People are becoming more and more aware about adhering to a healthy lifestyle and the Internet is full of information about it. A lot of health magazines and blogs will tell you which is health and which is not. There are also health gurus that introduce new ways of eating healthy. However, as much as this fixation for a healthy lifestyle is a good thing, this can also lead to another least known eating disorder called orthorexia.
Orthorexia comes from the Greek word that means "correct" and is used to describe the obsession to eat healthily. Professor Charlotte Markey, a psychologist at the Rutgers University, said that the obsession to eat healthily can lead to another type of health disorder.
This maladaptive eating behavior starts with good intention until people begin to fixate on the quality of food they eat. People suffering from orthorexia begin to remove the types of food they consider impure or bad for their health, such as carbohydrates, sugar, or sweets.
As they do this, they continue with the line of thought that they can still improve more and start cutting on salt, wheat, and dairy. Before they realized it, they are consuming a very limited amount of diet.
Signs that a person is suffering from orthorexia include obsessing on what they should be eating and continuously whittle down the foods they allow themselves to eat. They spend a lot of time planning the types of food they need to eat, resisting what they deem as temptations, and applauding themselves when they are able to stick to their diets. This kind of obsession impacts their social lives since food is a big part of our social experience.
Dr. Rebecca Reynolds, a nutrition researcher from the University of Wales, said that there is a blurry line between orthorexia and healthy eating. Oftentimes, those people suffering from it don't think it's wrong because they are doing the right thing.
The best way to describe orthorexia is when a person begins to suffer anxiety and distress in order to eat "healthily." Such behavior can be considered maladaptive and can be treated with both medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
