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Be fit. Eat clean! Sugar free, gluten free, non GMO, no pesticides, grass fed…This is the mantra of healthy living in today’s culture.<\/p>\nBe fit. Eat clean! Sugar free, gluten free, non GMO, no pesticides, grass fed…This is the mantra of healthy living in today’s culture.<\/p>\n
But Mary took this clean eating strategy too far and put herself in physical danger. She found herself sitting in the emergency department with severe nausea, underweight, hypokalemic and dehydrated. \u00a0She had recently been on a 3-day water only cleanse as a way to clear out impurities in her body from foods she felt were unhealthy. She told the physician that she had a very restrictive diet and ritualized eating patterns. She was fixated on the quality of the food she consumed.<\/p>\n
So\u00a0when does this emphasis on clean eating become a pathological obsession and cause a person to avoid certain foods because they are believed to be impure or unhealthy? \u00a0Like most problems, our state of well-being\u00a0has to do with how we\u00a0think. In this case, how you think about food. When\u00a0you become obsessed with eating healthy,\u00a0find yourself dieting in extreme ways\u00a0and when the foods you eat are causing you distress or impairment, you may be struggling with what is being called orthorexia nervosa.<\/p>\n
Orthorexia is not a formalized psychiatric diagnosis. It’s a condition that fits somewhere between anorexia nervosa and avoidant food intake disorder and can have an obsessive quality about it. The person is afraid to eat certain foods because of what the food may\u00a0do to him or her. The condition is being studied and needs more research. Some experts believe it is another form or presentation of anorexia nervosa. Whatever the case, being worried about food harming you is not a normal state of mind.<\/p>\n
So if you find yourself shifting from a healthy eating focus to an obsession or fixation on healthy eating, pay attention. You could be moving yourself into an eating disorder. This over dedication to clean and healthy eating can impair your relationships and put you in physical danger with nutritional deficits.<\/p>\n
Get help from a mental health professional who can guide you to healthy eating without\u00a0fixation. Clean eating and eating rituals\u00a0should not be the basis for \u00a0self-esteem. You should be able to eat without worry of damaging your self.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Be fit. Eat clean! Sugar free, gluten free, non GMO, no pesticides, grass fed…This is the mantra of healthy living in today’s culture. But Mary took this clean eating strategy too far and put herself in physical danger. She found herself sitting in the emergency department with severe nausea, underweight, hypokalemic and dehydrated. \u00a0She had…<\/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":[3821,3818,458,3822,3823,3820,3819],"class_list":["post-9324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationship-to-food","tag-avoidant-food-intake-disorder","tag-clean-eating","tag-eating-disorders","tag-non-gmo","tag-organic-eating","tag-orthorexia","tag-orthorexia-nervosa"],"yoast_head":"\n