Healthy eating varies by individual preference, often based on a variety of factors including a desire to lose weight, to manage a health condition or to engage in more sustainable, earth friendly practices. While shunning high sugar, heavily processed foods is an essential way of life for many, there are those who feel that a healthy eating lifestyle has the potential to turn into an obsession that can become life-threatening. (1)

Orthorexia, a word coined by Steven Bratman, MD, is a term used to indicate a “fixation on eating proper food” in which some people focus so strongly on a pure eating lifestyle that any kind of upset in their eating pattern can spiral out of control. In his article, “Health Food Eating Disorder,” which popularized the term orthorexia in the 90s, Bratman explains that the problems set in when people’s “‘kitchen spirituality’ begins to override other sources of meaning.  An orthorexic will be plunged into gloom by eating a hot dog…. Conversely, he can redeem any disappointment by extra efforts at dietary purity.”⁽²⁾

The desire to eat healthy can go too far

While Bratman is not advocating junk food over fruits and vegetables, he’s drawing on both his experiences as a physician who practices alternative medicine and the fact the he was once a cook and organic farmer at a large upstate New York commune.

The variety of food requests and bevy of dietary challenges he faced as a cook were almost overwhelming, from those who didn’t want vegetables chopped for fear that it would “destroy its etheric field,” to others who insisted on drinking the water in which some foods were steamed or boiled so they could ingest as many nutrients as possible. Ultimately, Bratman became cautious of the “comprehensive and consistent [theories] of healing diseases through nutrition,” and the notions that “dietary therapy is a uniformly wholesome, side effect free intervention.” (2)

Some say he, along with experts at the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) who include orthorexia on their site, are not far off.

According to NEDA, orthorexia not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V), but has similarities to other eating disorders. For example, people with bulimia nervosa or anorexia nervosa are heavily concerned with weight control and calories, while those with orthorexia focus obsessively on healthy eating that has nothing to do with weight or achieving thinness. (3)

One person who knows all too well that such a lifestyle can wreak havoc on mental and physical health is Johnny Righini, who became a vegan and raw foodist in his 20s. He believed that eating this way would make up for his years of struggles with anorexia and bulimia, but now says that the desire to eat better went awry. He admits that his thoughts about food were reflections of “twisted thinking”; for example, he’d fret over fruits and vegetables losing their “life force” with every passing minute after they were picked. (4)

“Just as I restricted myself from food, I restricted myself from people,” California resident Righini said. “If they were eating something my orthorexic mind didn’t approve of, I would get physical shakes and panic attacks.” (4)

For others, healthy eating habits are not a path to obsession, but a way to heal

On the flip side, there are those who are far from exhibiting such extreme tendencies. Many people make very healthy eating choices and end up not harming their health, but rather, healing it.

Stacy Stowers, for example, turned to a raw food diet to help manage pains that closely mimicked fibromyalgia. “I set out to eat raw food for one week as a ‘cleanse’… and in just 10 days my health was reversed! I was pain free!” She added, “The only thing hurting on me were my smile muscles, because I couldn’t stop smiling. I had my life back after 17 years.”(5)

There’s also the story of breast cancer survivor, Janette Murray-Wakelin. Diagnosed with the condition and given six-months to live, she opted to forego chemotherapy in favor of a raw food diet. She not only beat her stage 3 breast cancer, but runs marathons frequently. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that consuming 100% raw food made a huge difference to my recovery time and to my overall healing,” she said. (6)

While there are those who take healthy eating to extremes, plenty of others also reap the benefits of healthy dietary lifestyles. The key is to recognize when habits go too far, and thoughts and behaviors become obsessive.

Sources for this article include

(1) www.sciencedaily.com
(2) www.orthorexia.com
(3) www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
(4) www.times-standard.com
(5) www.examiner.com
(6) rawveganpath.com

SF Source The Raw Food World  June 2015