"Orthorexia": Healthy eating as a disorder page

[milly3]

I just saw this article in TIME, and it struck me as odd:


"After seeking help at three different facilities, Rutzel finally embraced a program of meal plans that challenged her to gradually incorporate foods she had blacklisted. Still slim in a size 2, she is engaged to a man whose oldest daughter is 9. And Rutzel says she is looking forward to sharing her experiences with food with her soon-to-be stepdaughter. "It's O.K. to eat potato chips and Pop-Tarts," says Rutzel, "but only every now and then."


http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...963297,00.html


So she had a disorder where she only would eat broccoli because she thinks everything else is unhealthy...and they encourage her to eat junk food instead? What?

[frogfarm]

Thomas Szasz refers to this (labeling) phenomenon as "the medicalization of behavior."

[preston]

That articles a facking joke right.

....Are they serious...

[DarthFriendly]

Oh yeah. They're serious as a diabetic coma.


On the other hand I've known enough raw vegans obsessed with fasting away the demons infesting the miles of "mucaloid plaque" in their intestines to not completely dismiss the phenomena.

[MalPaz]

there is a huge biological difference between an eating disorder and eating healthy. eating disorders are predisposed in what i call "bad genes" and are going to occur regardless when the environmental stimulus is set up.


on that, ED facilities are absolutely astoundingly horrifically the worst place you can ever go in your whole entire life(been there). recovery there is not about health AT ALL, it is about portions/calories/weight and is so incredibly ridicuously wrongfully run by overweight people who have absolutely no idea what having an ED is like- oh my ok rant end here...


PB is not orthorexia, at all. i was diagnosed with anorexia and orthorexia at different points in past couple years and until i took nutrition and health and recovery into my OWN hands, free from the capitalistic propagandic society of "professionals" out there, i was on the path of never recovering.


best choice i ever made was to start researching on my own, nutrition, and ending up here !!

[Timothy]

Try as I might, I just can't get concerned about learning to eat good food and feeling healthy. TIME magazine belongs on the bottom of a bird cage.

[Fury22]

^^Congrats on beating them! Personally I think you went about it the right way. (From personal experience I know but I will spare you the story) that relying on CW/outside help actually sends you in the complete opposite direction to the other extreme instead of finding stable, middle ground.


I would not consider broccoli and cauliflower as the only foods to be eating very healthy or her weight.


The label of basis for that disease should not be "healthy eating". It should be fear of _____, whatever processed foods, chemicals, etc.

[frogfarm]

And CW media/most people won't or can't differentiate between people who claim to be enjoying their way of eating ("mm, this tofu and brown rice is teeth-grindin' good!") and the genuine gusto, pleasure and lack of cravings experienced by just about everyone on some variant of LCHF, including primal and paleo.

[PrimalWannabeGirl]

Well, to qualify as a disorder, a behavior has to either cause significant suffering, or interfere with social and occupational functioning.


So an obsessive concern with healthy eating could be the obsessive thought that causes someone to starve to death for fear of eating something unhealthy. Or on a less extreme note, if someone has lost ALL their friends, or gotten fired from work because they can't stop talking about others' food choices as unhealthy, then they have a disorder.


Which reminds me: my older son (the one with autism) came home from his college Abnormal Psychology class one day and told me they were debating whether S&M was a disorder.


My son shared his perspective with the class. He had said, "Well, I guess if you miss work because you are tied to the bed, that could be a disorder."


teeheehee


Sooze

[chowza]

frogfarm, I've always enjoyed your insights, but I think you put it particularly well up there


We've turned into a 'guilt' society that's lost most sense of how eating pleasurably can be healthy and vice versa.