![\"vegetables-1085063_1920\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2019\/01\/vegetables-1085063_1920-300x198.jpg\")
Orthorexia was not a term Julie had ever heard. But she did\u00a0notice that her friend, Ella, talked a lot about eating healthy. It was almost as if she bragged about eating only what she considered “pure” foods. Her instagram was filled with photos and\u00a0recipes.<\/p>\n
Ella was basically obsessed with proper nutrition. So much so, that it was starting to create problems when the two friends\u00a0went to\u00a0dinner. It took Ella forever to order. She constantly complained about the items on restaurant menus and would only eat in a limited number of places.<\/p>\n
This\u00a0pathological obsession with proper nutrition has been called orthorexia. The term emerged around 1997 and literally means “correct diet” in Greek. The symptoms of this preoccupation have been around\u00a0for years. But\u00a0given all the emphasis on clean foods, warnings about problematic foods and ways to eat healthy, we are hearing the term more often. Move over dieting. It’s time for clean eating obsession.<\/p>\n
American is\u00a0loading up on organic, sugar-free, gluten-free, non-GMO, no pesticides and grass fed. As a result, some of us are developing restrictive diets and ritualized eating patterns. While orthorexia is not a formal clinical diagnosis, the fixation on the quality of food can be a gateway into eating disorders. A person can become fearful of eating because of what it may do to them\u00a0if it doesn’t meet their\u00a0healthy standards. And sometimes the thought is, “If I am afraid, I just won’t eat.”<\/p>\n
So how do you help a person with orthorexia? A first step is to knock them\u00a0off their “nutritional pedestal.” To do so, encourage a variety of foods. Point out the\u00a0obsessive thoughts around eating only clean foods. Make the person aware that their thoughts around the quality of food are more than normal. You could even suggest counseling to deal with the distress and impairment the\u00a0preoccupation causes\u00a0in a person’s life. And point out the fine line between eating well and obsessing over pureness of foods. One is healthy, the other is obsession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Orthorexia was not a term Julie had ever heard. But she did\u00a0notice that her friend, Ella, talked a lot about eating healthy. It was almost as if she bragged about eating only what she considered “pure” foods. Her instagram was filled with photos and\u00a0recipes. Ella was basically obsessed with proper nutrition. So much so, that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[918],"tags":[3818,256,3820,4357],"class_list":["post-10636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationship-to-food","tag-clean-eating","tag-healthy-eating","tag-orthorexia","tag-pure-foods"],"yoast_head":"\n