Orthorexia: Are you addicted to healthy eating?

If your bookshelf is lined with diet and nutrition books and you're constantly preoccupied with food labels, your healthy eating fixation may be masking an eating disorder.

By Heather Camlot

www.homemakers.com  

Sure, you want to eat well, and who can dispute the benefits of a healthy diet? But if your interest in nutrition is an obsession, you could be struggling with an eating disorder, says the author of a new book on the subject.

Orthorexia is defined as the fixation on eating healthy food, and according to Esther Kane, an eating disorders therapist based in Courtenay, B.C., it is on the rise. "People want to be thin and they want to be younger. These are the obsessions we have as a society, and food companies have caught on and are marketing to our hopes and dreams," she explains.

 There are no stats for the prevalence of orthorexia, which is still considered a sub-clinical diagnosis. People with other eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia make up about five per cent of the general population.

How orthorexia creeps up on you
With orthorexia, you might start out by making certain changes in your diet, like becoming vegetarian, then you begin eliminating more and more foods until you're become obsessed with what you're eating and when. "People start from a good place; they are generally trying to feel better," Kane explains. "But then they think food is the answer to their health concerns."

Kane, who struggled with orthorexia herself, reveals how someone can go from prioritizing

 healthy eating to obsessing about it. Kane's eating disorder began when she was a teen who turned to vegetarianism. From there she went vegan, then started eating only raw foods, then applied rules about food combinations to the point where she spent almost her entire day thinking about food. "It eclipsed the rest of my life."

Signs of orthorexia
Kane turns to Dr. Steven Bratman and his 2001 book Health Food Junkies, for signs of symptoms of the eating disorder:
-Being heavily into health foods
-Becoming obsessed with what you eat
-Reading a lot of books about health and diet
-Wanting to be healthy above all else
-Refusing to eat socially with others

 More signs of orthorexia
-Claiming you have a lot of food allergies
-Spending more than three hours a day thinking about food
-Planning tomorrow's food today
-Caring more about the virtue of what you eat than the pleasure of eating
-Continually getting stricter with your diet
-Feeling guilty or self-loathing when you stray from your diet
-Feeling a sense of superiority or self-righteousness.

Into the mind of someone with orthorexia
Like other eating disorders, the issue of control is at the root of orthorexia. When the world feels out of control, it's a way to feel safe, Kane explains. "People think orthorexia will save them from getting old, from having bad days, from having bad things happen to them, just like any other eating disorder. But eating well can't protect you from those things."

The problem then becomes self-recognition. Other people may notice the eating disorder first, but the sufferer won't likely listen. "It's their coping mechanism and the thought of taking that away from someone is too much to bear," explains Kane. The person has to come to it and work it out for themselves.

How to tackle orthorexia
Some coping strategies Kane writes about in her book, It's Not About the Food: A Woman's Guide to Making Peace with Food and Our Bodies, include sorting out emotional hunger versus physical hunger, changing mindset with cognitive behavioural techniques, and taking up meditation and relaxation. "Women with eating disorders live from the neck up," Kane explains. "Meditation helps ground us back into the body."

It's been over 15 years since Kane started her recovery process. Although she doesn't consider herself fully recovered, she does liken orthorexia to a quiet voice in the background. Her message to others: "We don't have to be at war with our bodies. Love your body, eat well, move your body, but don't obsess about it."