By Melissa Gerharter, R.D.
Most of us are familiar with Anorexia and Bulimia but what is Orthorexia? Orthorexia Nervosa is the obsession with healthful eating. The driving force behind orthorexia is not the desire to become thin but rather to eating perfectly healthy or a ‘pure’ diet.
The person who suffers from this takes something that normally is considered healthy and good for their body and takes it to the extreme. They then wind up with disordered eating and psychological torment. This restrictive behavior begins to interfere with the person’s quality of life. They start out controlling the situation but ends up with a disorder that controls them.
Some warning signs can include: anxiety over what they eat, following a restrictive diet, becoming overly ritualistic in their diet, using food to gain control in their life, focusing more on what they eat then what they don’t. Orthorexia is an emerging condition, education is the most useful tool we have to prevent it.
