Could You Be Suffering From Orthorexia?

It is amazing how much information on unhealthy foods we have at our fingertips now and for us to make those healthy changes. It is so much easier than before because you don’t have to go to your local health food store that carries homeopathic snake poison remedies to cure what ails you. These days you can just pick up gluten free, wheat free, dairy free foods and so much more at your local grocery store. Healthy food is so readily available so why not make the switch?

Being healthy is of course the way to live for all the right reasons. However, having an ‘unhealthy obsession’ with being healthy can turn into a more serious disorder which is called ‘orthorexia nervosa’. This translates to ‘fixation on righteous eating’. This disorder starts off as a simple attempt like all of us at one point or another in our lives. It could be from one too many Christmas holiday party meals or New Year’s resolutions to make that healthy change or to drop that last 10 pounds. However, this could turn into orthorexics and one can become a little too focused or fixated on being healthy. This could lead to obsessing about food quality and its purity. Which focuses on strict dieting on only healthy foods and punishment of more stricter fasts or extreme exercising if there are any ‘slip-ups’.

There is a whole other psychological component to orthorexics where self-esteem is involved by one feeling/thinking they are superior to others because of their pure way of eating/consuming. In turn this can damage precious relationships by pushing people away. The real damage takes place when all the restrictive dieting and calorie limiting starts to actually make the person physically sick.

Therefore, everything in moderation is the lesson I’ve learned through this study, eat right but enjoy life, have a balance in all you do to achieve health and wellness.