Orthorexia: obsession with health food is unhealthy

[Puke]

ABC News

It's no surprise that a lot of Americans watch what they eat. Counting calories, nutrients and fat grams is practically a national pastime.
But what happens when people go over the line, and the pursuit of healthy eating actually becomes unhealthy?

For Johnny Righini, a 26-year-old from California, eating a nutritious lunch is a painstaking ritual.

"Sometimes it takes days to prepare meals, because I have to sprout things, ferment things," he said. "I am constantly thinking about what I am gonna have for my next meal."

Charlotte Andersen, a 29-year-old Minnesota mother of three, says she went through the same thing.

"It really turned into a huge problem, and I think that there are a lot of other people out there that have this issue," she said.

Food took over her life. She compulsively catalogued everything she ate.

"I was obsessed with things like macro-nutrient ratios, numbers, charts," she said.

She realized she had a problem when she started paying more attention to food than to her own children.

A New Kind of Eating Disorder
What Righini and Andersen are struggling with is a kind of an obsessive compulsive disorder focused on health food called "orthorexia." The term was coined by Dr. Steve Bratman, author of the book "Health Food Junkies."

Bratman spent years in the health food movement, but became one of its critics after he realized he had started to become orthorexic.

"I suffered from a psychological obsession with food," he said. "When I was involved with this, it took up way too much of my life experiences when there were other things I could have been doing."

Orthorexia is different from anorexia, Bratman said.

"Anorexics seem to always think they're fat," he said, but "orthorexics know they're thin, but they want to be pure."

For people like Righini and Andersen, orthorexia is "a disease disguised as a virtue," Bratman said, because society approves of health consciousness. Americans spend millions on diet books hawking things like macrobiotics, the Zone, the Blood-type diet. And dieting is OK, up to a point.

[dalebert]

Vitruvian, are you reading this? 

[Vitruvian]

Vitruvian, are you reading this?

Yes, Dale.  I'm enjoying some delicious whole-wheat spaghetti as I read.

[Puke]

Yes, Dale.  I'm enjoying some delicious whole-wheat spaghetti as I read.

I smell an intervention.

"DROP THE BEAN SPROUTS!"
"WE JUST WANT YOU TO BE NORMAL!!"
"Here, have a Big Mac...it's not so bad..."

[dalebert]

I smell an intervention.

"DROP THE BEAN SPROUTS!"
"WE JUST WANT YOU TO BE NORMAL!!"
"Here, have a Big Mac...it's not so bad..."

I've tried. Believe me, I've tried.

[John Edward Mercier]

Big Mac? I need an INTERVENTION...

[peacenic]

Well duh, obsession with anything is unhealthy.  It's called OCD.   

I used to eat a lot of fast food, but decided to quit for health benefits.  This was about a year ago.  A few months later I got a craving and went to McD's and got a #1 (extra onions, large fries) and, while it was delicious, it almost made me puke.  (no offense, Puke)  Now, if I could get off Chinese food...

[Puke]

(no offense, Puke) 

That's the proper use of the term. 
I'm just borrowing it.

[Kat Kanning]

And the people harassing Vitruvian look sooo much healthier than him! 

[dalebert]

I openly admit that I hassle Vitruvian about his eating habits so that I don't feel as bad about my own bad eating habits, though they're really not that bad on the whole. Vitruvian is much more likely to still be alive by the time we discover how to upload our consciousnesses into the super computers and superior android bodies.

[Puke]

And the people harassing Vitruvian look sooo much healthier than him! 

[Can't respond, too busy eating chicken fried bacon covered Twinkies.]

[Pat K]

Yes, Dale.  I'm enjoying some delicious whole-wheat spaghetti as I read.

I smell an intervention.

"DROP THE BEAN SPROUTS!"
"WE JUST WANT YOU TO BE NORMAL!!"
"Here, have a Big Mac...it's not so bad..."

I might be the most unhealthy person here
and even I won't eat a Big Mac-yuck.

[John Edward Mercier]

I might be the most unhealthy person here
and even I won't eat a Big Mac-yuck.

What not a Ron White Environmentalist?

I openly admit that I hassle Vitruvian about his eating habits so that I don't feel as bad about my own bad eating habits, though they're really not that bad on the whole. Vitruvian is much more likely to still be alive by the time we discover how to upload our consciousnesses into the super computers and superior android bodies.

Don't know. Brian Maxwell, the marathon runner and inventor of the PowerBar, dropped dead of a heart attack at 51.

[Pat K]

I might be the most unhealthy person here
and even I won't eat a Big Mac-yuck.

What not a Ron White Environmentalist?

I am a super Ron White environmentalist,
but I prefer the cows I eat to be tasty.

[Kat Kanning]

[Can't respond, too busy eating chicken fried bacon covered Twinkies.]

LOL