Orthorexia: Is a Desire for Healthy Eating Making You Afraid to Eat?
Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:
- Orthorexia: Is a Desire for Healthy Eating Making You Afraid to Eat?
- From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
- Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
- Mental Health Quote
Orthorexia: Is a Desire for Healthy Eating Making You Afraid to Eat?
Have you heard of an eating disorder called orthorexia nervosa? It’s fairly new (the term was coined in the mid-1990s), and because it’s so new, it isn’t yet an official disorder in the DSM-5. It is, however, a real condition that disrupts lives and leads to negative health consequences. Orthorexia is an obsession with healthy eating that is so extreme it makes people who experience it afraid to eat almost anything.
Wanting to eat well for mental health as well as physical health is a good thing. For some people, though, the desire to be healthy is ironically leading to malnutrition because they experience extreme anxiety about food and its real or imagined health risks. How do you know if you’ve crossed the line between health-conscious and health-obsessed? These orthorexia signs point to a potential problem:
- Spending large amounts of time analyzing nutrition labels, researching trends, and engaging in online healthy eating communities
- Feeling physically unwell despite what you think is healthy eating, including digestive problems, low energy, skin and hair problems, and weight loss
- Restricting your social life because of food concerns
- Limiting your food intake to a small range of things you trust
If this describes you, you may want to talk to your doctor or therapist about orthorexia nervosa. There aren’t official treatments yet but treating orthorexia like other eating disorders or obsessive-compulsive disorders has been helpful.
Sources
Barclay, R. Sam. (2015). Orthorexia: The new eating disorder you've never heard of. Healthline. Retrieved
April 2020 from https://www.healthline.com/health-news/orthorexia-the-new-eating-disorder-youve-never-heard-of-022415#1
Orthorexia. (n.d.). National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). Retrieved April 2020 from
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/learn/by-eating-disorder/other/orthorexia
WebMD Medical Reference. (2017). What is orthorexia? WebMd. Retrieved April 2020 from
https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/eating-disorders/what-is-orthorexia
Related Articles Dealing with Eating Disorders
- Have “Fear Foods” Hindered Your Eating Disorder Recovery?
- Eating Attitudes Test: Do I Have an Eating Disorder?
- Eating Disorder Quiz
- Eating Disorder Symptoms
- Types of Treatment for Eating Disorders
- 3 Lessons for the Early Stages of Eating Disorder Recovery
- Coping with Food Anxiety in Eating Disorder Recovery
Your Thoughts
Today's Question: Did your eating disorder start with a desire to eat more healthy? We invite you to participate by sharing your thoughts, experiences, and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page.
From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.
- Why I Sometimes Miss My Maladaptive Daydreaming in Recovery
- Antidepressants and Sex Drive: Tips for a Decrease in Libido
- How to Find Healthy Activities to Cope with Tough Times
- Family Therapy -- Is It Worth Trying?
- Coronavirus Good News and My Mental Health
- Social Anxiety Without Socializing
- The Anti-Porn Movement Detrimentally Affects Porn Addicts
- Keeping Fit with Schizoaffective Disorder During COVID-19 Elizabeth Caudy
- Accepting Anxiety: Making Sense of Acceptance
- How I Trick My Brain Into Getting Things Done
- Body Acceptance Is a More Realistic Goal than Body Positivity
- Creating a Healthy Morning Routine
- Being Online Causes Digital Self-Harm
- Use Affirmations to Build Self-Esteem
- Learned Helplessness and How to Deal with It at Work
Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:
- How to Cope with Racing Thoughts at Work
- Forcing an Alter Switch in Dissociative Identity Disorder
- Therapeutic Alliance and Taking Charge of Mental Illness
If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Mental Health Quote
"It doesn’t get easier. You just get stronger."
Read more abuse quotes.
------------------------------------------------------------------
That's it for now. If you know of anyone who can benefit from this newsletter or the HealthyPlace.com site, I hope you'll pass this onto them. You can also share the newsletter on any social network (like facebook or stumbleupon) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week, follow HealthyPlace on Twitter or become a fan of HealthyPlace on Facebook. Also, check out HealthyPlace on Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest, where you can share your mental health pins on our Share Your Mental Health Experiences board.
APA Reference
Peterson, T.
(2020, May 12). Orthorexia: Is a Desire for Healthy Eating Making You Afraid to Eat?, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, December 21 from https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/mental-health-newsletter/orthorexia-is-a-desire-for-healthy-eating-making-you-afraid-to-eat
