When no food is right

From a recent story on orthorexia in the October issue of Teen Vogue.

Many of you watched Charlotte from The Great Fitness Experiment on 20/20 a few weeks ago, as she bravely spoke out about her personal prior experience with orthorexia (but not without sneaking in a fabulously funny squirrel reference. Go girl!)

This subject has long fascinated me...back in October of 2001, I wrote one of my favorite stories ever on the subject. Here's the intro:

Dr. Steven Bratman knew he was on to something when one of his patients blamed his divorce on a raisin.

That raisin provoked allergic cravings, which led to a carbohydrate binge, which in turn altered his brain chemistry, causing him to scream at his wife. Divorce papers arrived soon thereafter. The soon-to-be-ex-husband blamed it on the raisin, but according to Bratman, the true grounds for this divorce are a newfangled eating disorder he calls orthorexia nervosa, an obsession with eating "correct" foods.The Colorado doctor, himself a reformed orthorexic who once refused to eat any carrot plucked from the ground more than 15 minutes earlier, coined the term after seeing countless patients in his alternative health practice who were obsessed by food. His book "Health Food Junkies: Orthorexia Nervosa: Overcoming the Obsession with Healthful Eating--(Broadway Books, $23.95) has struck an international nutritional chord. Throngs of people have identified with his experiences, which include a one-time avocado infatuation on par with heroin addiction...

Oh, and not to brag, but I'm cited by wordspy.com as helping introduce the term to the public. Pat, pat.

I think this would make a tremendous segment idea for the Today Show and so I want to ask you to help me out by taking the quiz below and leaving a comment about any experiences you may have had with systematically eliminating foods, shunning certain food groups, only eating three foods for long stretches at a time, etc.

You helped this happen with the Secret Dieting segment on Monday (remember, you left all these great comments in June? And some of you had your comments blasted across the TV screen as a result!) Let's do it again!

Comments

I would definitely say I suffered from a combination of orthorexia and anorexia from my sophomore through junior year of high school. I really wanted to lose weight (bad idea since I was 5'11" 145lbs) but I was determined to do it the healthy way so I never ate junk food, barely snacked, and ate under 1500 calories a day (I was truly obsessive). I got down to 140 for the year, but gained about five pounds a semester until college started. I gained the freshman five and I'm about 160 now. The gain has been difficult, but I'm more confident, curvier, and prefer enjoying food :)

I have times when I am really obsessed with eating "correctly" and I can understand how that could take control of people. However I have never been to the point that Charlotte was. I know that there is a place for everything in a healthy diet as long as moderation is employed.

Also I really like the idea of raw foodism to a point. I think that in the end it's a matter of who is in control, the food or you?

I once invoked a sugar, wheat and dairy embargo, it started under the guise of an experiment for my health, but once the pounds starting dropping off my motivation changed rather swiftly...it made me a little crazy to be so deprived, I'd spend my evenings wandering the aisles of my local supermarket, gazing longingly at all the forbidden fruit, while feeling all smug and superior to those who didn't have my self control.

Hrm. I don't know. Does it count if you believe, mentally, that you just "can't" eat that food - but you still do? I mean...yeah, I obsess over what I shouldn't be eating. But I still eat that stuff sometimes.

My big one is sugar. When I started losing weight, sugar was The Devil. It did not enter my house, let alone my lips. I still feel that way. Sugar should be banned by all world governments IMO. But I eat it sometimes anyway, because I'm as big a junkie as anyone else. So I don't know if I can count that. :-)

I think I'm just a failed wannabe orthorexic. And I'm not being flip (for a change) or discounting the seriousness of the condition. This is probably a circumstance where failure is GOOD. But I have to say I do have the tendency and I go through spells where I indulge it.

But today, I'm going to Starbucks to indulge a different tendency instead, thanks to a certain someone who brightened my day via USPS yesterday! :-)

V.

Weight loss industry will focus on the way people should feel while doing it, in order to achieve better results and stay healthy all the time. Being healthy and thin is not a dream, it should be something, that is a reasonable and easy to be done.

The modern obsession with a thin body is another problem that women face now a days. Women try everything in order to get this extra pounds off, things like pills, patches, diet, hunger, exercises and all kind of weight loss products. Some of them work, but others - not.

I would admit to being a bit of a snob when it comes to unhealthy food options at family get togethers. However, I am not obsessive about healthy eating- I still enjoy sugar, chocolate and wine occasionally!

Thanks for the shout out Leslie! Many of you already know my story so I won't bore you with a recap but I wanted to add that I absolutely agree with you that Orthorexia should be classified as its own eating disorder. It differs from Anorexia in one major way: the person doesn't necessarily care about being thin, but being "healthy." I think O.N. is so pernicious because we truly think we are being healthy and society rewards us for that. People would always tell me "You are the healthiest eater I know!" and "I wish I had your self-control!" and "I bet your intestines look like brushed steel!" (that one was my fave!). But there are real costs, both physically, mentally and socially with O.N. Even though my weight never got freakishly low, I still lost my period and had severe vitamin deficiencies. I was tired all the time. Plus I couldn't eat cake at my kids' birthday parties! Who wants to live like that?

Good for you for getting the word out! The more people who hear about it, the better!

I've never had an eating disorder (well, perhaps in high school I ate too much, sometimes a whole bag of pepperidge farms cookies after school, but it wasn't at disorder level, I don't think). I did go through Atkins at one point, and I focus on healthy eating a lot (ergo my blog), but part of it is that I exercise and eat healthy so that when I go out to eat or to parties, I can eat whatever I want (and I'm not shy with dessert).

I would think that orthorexia would be even harder to overcome than anorexia. Because anorexia can be diagnosed more easily, and it's hard to convince people that they shouldn't be eating all healthy all the time.

I remember when I was first trying to lose weight I was down to probably 1000 calories a day and at the gym 5 days a week. I was so restrictive-eating only items that read low-fat/calorie/sugar etc. I don't think I ate anything that wasn't a "diet" food-I even forwent meat for vegetatian substitutes because meat had too many calories. I know that it's not the same, but you can be diet-food obsessed as well! (BTW, now I try to concentrate on whole foods for my meals.)

In the midst of my dieting, I would take eating healthy to major unhealthy extremes followed by binges of the most unhealthy food ever. Now that I don't diet anymore, I am in much more control of my food and feel better about myself. I still have my struggles but I really try not to beat myself up over enjoying food.

I agree that orthorexia falls squarely into the eating disorder category, but it's probably going to be difficult to convince most healthcare professionals to take it seriously (or perhaps to recognize it within their patients) since these people are doing what most people see as being ultra-healthy.

This really ties in with the whole frenemy idea - when do I believe someone who's telling me that my healthy eating is actually a problem and when do I take it with a grain of salt, because that person might be trying to sabotage me?

Oh, and I mean "me" in the theoretical sense - if there is an opposite side of the spectrum from orthorexia...that's me.

Although I wouldn't put myself in this category--I did, after all, just have a bar of dark chocolate for breakfast, though I admit I'm not happy with myself for it--I've been through enough periods of healthy eating extremes in my life (and all the mental anxiety that goes along with it) to believe that this really is a legitimate disorder. It strikes me as similar to exercise bulimia in that, as Charlotte says above, society views the behavior as good for you, making it difficult for people who suffer from it to recognize when they are taking things too far. As a person who does sometimes struggle with a tendency to beat myself up over a cookie or a missed workout, and someone who has to hold my tongue when I see friends and family down a greasy burger and fries, I can certainly see how our culture of health and diet--the creation of inherently "good" and "bad" habits when it comes to what we put into and what we get out of our bodies--can start to get into a person's head and become an unhealthy obsession.

I also believe that these kind of disorders are harder to recognize because they are endorsed by society. An article came out recently that said obese folks could lose weight and maintain that loss "Simply by exercising 3-4 hours a day."
Um, hello? That used to be considered obsessive, and now it's encouraged?!1

Sorry, still posting.

It doesn't help that all the advice we hear is "ALWAYS eat this, but NEVER eat that! Do as we say and you will be healthy and thin. Deviate, even a little, and YOU'LL GET FAT, THEN DIE FROM A HORRIBLE, PAINFUL DISEASE!!!!!!

Leslie, you put it perfectly on "Today." There IS room for everything in a healthy diet!

pretty sure the boy and i almost toed that line - interesting night last night for both of us.

I remember distinctly one evening where I was with my boyfriend of the time and his friend... we went out for dinner and afterward I felt so crappy (it hadn't been an incredibly healthy meal), I just broke down and started crying. I couldn't control myself.

There's also been occassions when I haven't eaten because the only things in the cupboards was foods that weren't healthy enough. I'd get really freaked out about these things.

Does it still go on? Yes, but to a lesser extent. I'm getting better. And some days it worse than others. But orthorexia is definitely a serious disorder.

Also love Alyssa's points!

I'm not sure it's good to pathologize wanting to eat healthfully as a disorder. While taking it to extremes is obviously a problem, I think it might be more fair to characterize that tendency as part of a more overarching personality trait. In other words, rather than branding people who turn down, for example, french fries at every turn as 'orthorexic' it might be better to address the underlying control or obsession issues that lead those who do take health eating (and likely other behaviors) to a degree that harms them mentally or physically. There are many processed, junky foods that I refuse to eat. But I don't obsess over the fact that I can't eat them, etc. And yet, some would label be orthorexic. In a society as screwed up about food as we often are, I question whether it is wise to make those who choose to eat healthfully feel even more persecuted than they already do.

I had never heard of Orthorexia until a two weeks ago but I totally relate.I have had so many times of eating obsessively "healthy" and that often times meant different things to me.I am a long time vegetarian and at one point I went vegan. However, I was obsessed with making my own "healthy" desserts with whole grains and flaxseeds and maple syrup, and was having bingeing issues. After three months I gave that up and later a therapist told me I should give up all white flour and white sugar (which I didn't eat that much of to begin with, but it certainly snuck in) to help ease my binge eating problems. It sort of worked, but then I was obsessed with eating the things I wasn't "allowed" to eat, which is what started my bingeing issues to begin with. Then, in an attempt to lose the 15-20 lbs I gained after my divorce from bingeing, I tried yet another "healthy" way of eating, McDougalling, another vegan thing based on starches. Binged my way out of that, too. Moderation is best for me, period. Obsession is no fun

So, if you've never had orthorexia, have never been TOO focused on eating "good foods" and don't have trouble getting your veggies in...then what? You just don't vote? I think you left out a catagory for those that eat right and have no issues...seems like a slanted survey.

i've gone through orthorexic periods in my life, mostly banning "wrong" foods or, like sagan said, not eating because nothing in the cupboards was "healthy enough". but a few years ago, i said to myself, i can either impose all these rules on myself that i know i'll break, or i can forget the food games and just be happy. food is food; it's not right or wrong or good or bad until you label it as such. also, i read someplace that a realistic eating plan should be 80% healthy and 20% junk, so i leave it at that. your body will tell you if you need more veggies or less meat or whatever, if you let it.

i agree with model behavior. Shouldn't there be a poll category for people that eat healthy but don't obsess over it or look down on people that don't eat as healthy?

I am sure that a lot of people struggle with this on a day to day basis, and I often freak out in my head about what I am eating (where did this piece of meat come from? is this muffin stuffed with sugar? etc etc) yet I have always been taught to have a balance. I try really hard to maintain that balance and stay rational. No one in my family is heavy, and we all eat pretty balanced meals. I was always taught to eat what you really enjoy (food is NOT just about calories in, it is an experience and part of culture etc) and listen to your body. Maybe you shouldn't have the second helping, but enjoy the first one to the fullest. i wish they advertised THAT as the way to eat. Then again, with all the crap they put in our food- even the veggies- it is hard to just blindly eat anymore isn't it?

Phew. My typing muscles are getting an AWSE workout tonight. Just read Charlotte blog on this. As someone who works a lot in the health and fitness community I see this a lot. Similarly many folks can veer into obsessive behaviors around exercise (which was always a bigger issue than food ever was) without it necessarily being anorexic or bulimic.

For me the key with clients and instructors and myself is to emphasize that if you can't laugh at yourself, goof up and forgive yourself or if there are no exceptions to a labyrinthine set of rules - that it is time to step back.

I feel like making light of the situation is always a good remedy. Luckily I have plenty of help.

When I write "(which was always a bigger issue than food ever was)"

I meant: which was always a bigger issue than food ever was FOR ME.