Orthorexia: An Obsession With Healthy Food
“Orthorexia
is an obsession with eating healthy food — to such an extent that the
person may restrict their diet very severely and limit their functioning, such
as not socializing in situations where there is ‘unhealthy’ food,” says Sheela
Raja, PhD, an assistant professor and clinical psychologist in the Colleges of
Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago. There has been
no research into eating disorder statistics to know how widespread orthorexia
is, but in general the idea of “good” and “bad” foods is relatively common in people
with eating disorders.
The
advent of so many fad diets hasn’t helped matters either. No carbs, only raw
food, macrobiotics — diets with such strict food rules can certainly
lead to confusion about what really is healthy and what isn’t, and in turn can
contribute to orthorexia.
Warning
signs can range from negative feelings about “impure” foods to trouble dealing
with stress. Avoiding social situations or bringing your own food to
restaurants or get-togethers can be another red flag, as can insisting that
good health is totally dependent on the quality of the food you eat. It can
also be more common in people who have obsessive or black-and-white thinking
that a food is either all good or all bad.
Orthorexia
is not an official psychiatric diagnosis, given that the symptoms overlap
significantly with diagnoses of other eating disorders. “No classic treatment
plan is available, but I work with people to normalize food and take away
magical thinking about the ‘right/perfect’ foods,” says Esther Kane, MSW, a
registered clinical counselor in private practice in Courtenay, British
Columbia, Canada, and author of It’s Not About the Food: A Woman’s
Guide to Making Peace with Food and Our Bodies.
Nutritional
education and finding other ways to deal with stress and negative moods are
important steps. Raja, for example, suggests participating in an activity
unrelated to eating, such as going for a walk or taking a bath, when feeling
stressed. Focusing on moderation is also key, as is emphasizing the idea that
no food should be excluded from the diet.
James Goodman on 12 May 13In a bold and unprecedented move for any professional body, the UK Division of Clinical Psychology, a sub-division of the British Psychological Society, will issue a Position Statement tomorrow which calls for the end of the unevidenced biomedical model implied by psychiatric diagnosis. (Editor's note: MIA will link to statement here as soon as it is made available) The key message of the statement is: "The DCP is of the view that it is timely and appropriate to affirm publicly that the current classification system as outlined in DSM and ICD, in respect of the functional psychiatric diagnoses, has significant conceptual and empirical limitations. Consequently, there is a need for a paradigm shift in relation to the experiences that these diagnoses refer to, towards a conceptual system not based on a 'disease' model." In brief, the argument is that the so-called 'functional' diagnoses - schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorder, ADHD and so on - are not scientifically valid categories and are often damaging in practice. The statement argues that we already have alternatives, such as psychological formulation, and that there is a need to work in partnership with service users and professional groups, including psychiatrists, in order to develop these further. The full statement can be read here.