Comments on: Is Orthorexia In Vogue?

By: S_Morlowe

S_Morlowe — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:26:03 +0000

Orthorexia isn’t ‘dying from healthy eating’. It’s an obsession with avoiding ‘unhealthy’ foods. Quotation marks because it goes to extremes. It’s about eating ONLY the ‘right’ foods at the ‘right’ times in the ‘right’ amounts. Bad foods can be anything from sweets/candy to cheese. Not processed cheese-in-a-can, but normal, GOOD-FOR-YOU cheese.

Obsessing over ANY kind of food or eating behaviour is not good for you. Ever.

BTW, where did you get those statistics? And did you know that apparently tomatoes give you cancer now too? I’d hardly call those junk food.

By: Gain Muscle Lose Fat

Gain Muscle Lose Fat — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 13:49:33 +0000

I think it is unconscionable of you to keep this farce orthorexia alive. John Stossel was sued by an organic foods group after he reported false information about organic food, several years ago. Of course, he now latches on to information some quack comes up with 10 years ago, who’s proof was the death of one woman. His diagnosis, she was killed by healthy food. WHAT? Seriously?

I’m appalled that ABC allowed that story to even air. But considering the advertisers, I’m sure it was a win win situation, pharmaceutical companies and fast food restaurants.

Fact: 99% of fast food is not just unhealthy, but causes cancer and diabetes
Fact: 90% of supermarket food is not just unhealthy, but causes cancer and diabetes

If you want to just eat plain, healthy food you have to go out of your way, and buy in bulk when you get there, to find organic, non-pesticide, non- processed, non-carcinogenic, non-diabetic-inducing food. I mean food? It shouldn’t be that hard to find just normal food.

Do people have eating disorders? Yes, but that’s that person. Does eating healthy lead to eating disorders? No. Does coming up with a new mental illness help drug companies? Yes, they can sell more drugs. Does saying “don’t obsess over healthy food” help anyone? Yes, it tells you subconsciously, to give up the notion of eating healthy and go buy fast food.

What’s the level of obesity in America? 70% and growing.

How many reports has ABC done on eating healthy, or showing mercury is in high-fructose corn syrup, or hormones in milk and beef? 1%

[do the math]

By: Kellen

Kellen — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:27:58 +0000

This is so true and so sad. Even worse is when doctors do it to teens – and a boy at that. One of my clients took their 12 year old son to the doctor for his regular exam and the doctor told him he was “overweight” for his age and needed to lose some. Now this child is perfectly normal looking to me. I can’t imagine where he would lose the weight from. But he is now obsessed with how many calories are in things, how much he eats and how much he weighs. I’m just horrified that a doctor would do this.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:22:04 +0000

that was a bit eye opening. I have been trying to not eat processed foods. Not because I want to lose weight though just because I felt it was a more healthy option. Hmmm. I dont want to get caught up in all that disordered eating again though.

By: Nomie

Nomie — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:25:33 +0000

Kyo, I saw that same article in Cosmo Girl. I was actually really glad that they featured two girls who were initially told they didn’t have eating disorders because they were fat. So that was decent… if only they didn’t have the counterbalancing vending machine crap. (Which, if there is anything better than a Snickers when you’re in the middle of your 5:30 seminar and you forgot to pack a snack, I don’t know of it.)

By: Kyo

Kyo — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:53:57 +0000

I thought the point of the article was to point out to girls that they could be harming themselves by following what they think is a healthy diet. I saw it as pointing out a problem and putting a name to it, though I did notice a few things they could have left out.

Cosmo Girl has an article about eating disorders and they note that they removed details that may be triggering… and in the same magazine they advise you on what to pick from a vending machine. They tell you to only eat half of a snack or granola bar because they can be high in calories. Yea…

By: Rosemary Grace

Rosemary Grace — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:01:37 +0000

My (male) cousin developed something like this when he went away to university. His father and grandfather both died in their 40s of cancer, so it started with trying to lead a healthy life and avoid their fat. When he first lived away from home he “got really into healthy eating”, flirted with the raw food thing, was very strict about carbs and fat… and then his room mates started calling his mother to say they were worried because he was loosing a ton of weight and they never saw him eat any more.

Fortunately, she convinced him to see a doctor, and then he got a job at a restaurant, and the combination of being warned he was overdoing it, and being a poor student offered a free meal every shift won out in the end.

I think the whole thing lasted 6 months or so, and he was 19 or 20 so he may have also been naturally loosing his round boy-face, but he very suddenly went from slim muscular surfer to toothpick arms and spindly legs. Now he’s healthy and athletic again. At the time I didn’t know the term Orthorexia, but his restrictions all grew out of an obsession with “health”.

By: Anchor

Anchor — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 06:00:02 +0000

“They also interviewed an author/speaker who was pushing his book and his Orthorexia lifestyle”

He was not promoting “Orthorexia”.

The man was promoting a raw food diet. Lot’s of not orthorexic people eat mostly if not completely raw food diets.

I do think he looked awful, and I also think that speaks volumes about his diet…but promoting Orthorexia? No, he wasn’t.

By: Entangled

Entangled — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:10:05 +0000

Enomis, your comment seems very spot on with my experience. It wasn’t really about being healthy, it was partially about trying to look a certain way and mostly about obsessive-compulsive control and a desperate clinging to the moral superiority society associates with a certain way of eating (even as “authorities” disagree on what that way of eating is).

Ironically, it made me less healthy. I have a lousy stomach anyway and the combination of too little nourishment and too much fiber made it worse (and TMI: really, really gassy). I had less energy and frequent headaches and dizziness from failing to convince my body that what I’d eaten for breakfast was enough to last until lunch. I was so damn bloated all the time that I actually think I lost a little weight (I think – I also swore off the scale) when I started eating intuitively and eating more food.

I agree that it shouldn’t be framed as an obsession with healthy food but as an obsession with further and further restraining the rules of what is and isn’t acceptable to eat and conflating those rules with a strict sense of moral value.

By: Enomis

Enomis — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:37:34 +0000

Orthorexia is another way of equating “health” and morality. (Scare quotes only because sometimes what people think is healthy isn’t, which is why you can die froma disorder where you supposedly only eat “healthy” foods.)

The real problem I see is that framing orthorexia as an obsession with healthy food and eating makes orthorexia seem like a very healthy disorder to have. Since you are making “healthy” choices, you are a morally superior person who really cares about taking care of yourself and won’t be a drain on society by becoming sick or disabled, etc. etc.

Cognitive dissonance much? Orthorexia is a mental illness that can cause you to ruin your health or even kill yourself. From what I can tell, it is a variation of anorexia, where sufferers have the same obsessive-compulsive patterns, the same need for control, and the same need to be perfect. Arguably, orthorexia is anorexia in disguise.

Giving teenage girls tips on how to do it is morally reprehensible. Implying that it’s a way to become a superior, better person is even more so.