Orthorexia nervosa
21/12/19 17:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsWhat is healthy and what is not so healthy, and what could even be dangerous for our health? And, what could we even allow ourselves to eat at this point? Not much, people with orthorexia would say.
It all starts with the desire to be more conscious and responsible about what we put into our body. But then people with this condition start to design their own rules about what is healthy and what isn't. With time, these requirements become ever stricter, and more and more food products get relegated from the personal menu. The list of "unhealthy" foods grows on and on.
Thus, orthorexia is developed gradually. At first, the person is more focused on what they are eating, they follow strict guidelines. For example, if someone has decided to lose weight, they change their eating regime. Others just decide to pay more attention to what they eat, maybe they have heard about all the scandals with bad food and low quality products.
With time, this behaviour could become an obsession. And the fixation on healthy eating could become a burden that enslaves everything else the person does.
While the studies on other eating disorders like anorexy and bulimia are relatively sophisticated, with orthorexy things are still in their baby years. It is not even clear yet whether orthorexy should be defined as an illness, or a mere over-fixation on healthy eating. Those afflicted often have a different notion of what is healthy from the rest, which makes recognising the problem harder.
There are also no clear criteria about what could be identified as an uhleahty fixation on healthy eating. The official term Orthorexia nervosa was introduced in 1997 by Stephen Bratman, who observed and diagnosed his own condition. He believed his obsession with healthy eating went beyond the norm, so he made notes about it. Those notes are still being used as a foundation for studying orthorexia.
Among professionals, there is still a debate if orthorexia should be considered an eating disorder like anorexy and bulimia, or it is just something of a fixation, i.e. a nuisance that is not dangerous. As usual, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. In any case, there is something unhealthy about any fixation. And there sure are some parallels to the established eating disorders.
On the other hand, there are some notable differences. Sure, while at first the condition was not considered related to obesity, and the desire to keep in good shape, in most studies of the problem a clear correlation with body weight care can be noticed.
In the worst case scenario, fixating on what we consider healthy could itself become unhealthy, since it leads to a one-dimensional approach to health and food, and could ultimately lead to serious problems like avitaminosis, shortage of essential microelements and other substances that are important for the normal functioning of the human body.
It could also lead to anorexia, and a substantial loss of fat tissues and even muscle. Malnutrition could bring loss of hair, hormonal imbalance, anemia, and disruption of the immune system. If the body weight is way below the norm, that could start affecting internal organs and entire body systems.
As one might guess, the orthorexic approach to eating, beside being a relatively recent phenomenon, is also mostly inherent to wealthy societies. When a society enjoys an excess of food, in principle people could pick up what they eat, and this in turn could facilitate the emergence of certain extremes, like orthorexy. In developing countries almost no eating disorders are observed, because food is scarce, and thus, important for survival. No one would ever think of cutting their food intake without an urgent necessity for it.
It all starts with the desire to be more conscious and responsible about what we put into our body. But then people with this condition start to design their own rules about what is healthy and what isn't. With time, these requirements become ever stricter, and more and more food products get relegated from the personal menu. The list of "unhealthy" foods grows on and on.
Thus, orthorexia is developed gradually. At first, the person is more focused on what they are eating, they follow strict guidelines. For example, if someone has decided to lose weight, they change their eating regime. Others just decide to pay more attention to what they eat, maybe they have heard about all the scandals with bad food and low quality products.
With time, this behaviour could become an obsession. And the fixation on healthy eating could become a burden that enslaves everything else the person does.
While the studies on other eating disorders like anorexy and bulimia are relatively sophisticated, with orthorexy things are still in their baby years. It is not even clear yet whether orthorexy should be defined as an illness, or a mere over-fixation on healthy eating. Those afflicted often have a different notion of what is healthy from the rest, which makes recognising the problem harder.
There are also no clear criteria about what could be identified as an uhleahty fixation on healthy eating. The official term Orthorexia nervosa was introduced in 1997 by Stephen Bratman, who observed and diagnosed his own condition. He believed his obsession with healthy eating went beyond the norm, so he made notes about it. Those notes are still being used as a foundation for studying orthorexia.
Among professionals, there is still a debate if orthorexia should be considered an eating disorder like anorexy and bulimia, or it is just something of a fixation, i.e. a nuisance that is not dangerous. As usual, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. In any case, there is something unhealthy about any fixation. And there sure are some parallels to the established eating disorders.
On the other hand, there are some notable differences. Sure, while at first the condition was not considered related to obesity, and the desire to keep in good shape, in most studies of the problem a clear correlation with body weight care can be noticed.
In the worst case scenario, fixating on what we consider healthy could itself become unhealthy, since it leads to a one-dimensional approach to health and food, and could ultimately lead to serious problems like avitaminosis, shortage of essential microelements and other substances that are important for the normal functioning of the human body.
It could also lead to anorexia, and a substantial loss of fat tissues and even muscle. Malnutrition could bring loss of hair, hormonal imbalance, anemia, and disruption of the immune system. If the body weight is way below the norm, that could start affecting internal organs and entire body systems.
As one might guess, the orthorexic approach to eating, beside being a relatively recent phenomenon, is also mostly inherent to wealthy societies. When a society enjoys an excess of food, in principle people could pick up what they eat, and this in turn could facilitate the emergence of certain extremes, like orthorexy. In developing countries almost no eating disorders are observed, because food is scarce, and thus, important for survival. No one would ever think of cutting their food intake without an urgent necessity for it.
