Yes, a new report in the Guardian says there has been a significant rise in cases of orthorexia nervosa and Orthorexics are increasing everyday! What in the world is Orthorexia you ask??
Orthorexia is a condition named by a Californian doctor, Steven Bratman, in 1997, and is described as a “fixation on righteous eating”. Orthorexics (people who suffer from Orthorexia) have very rigid rules around eating. They refuse to touch sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soy, corn and dairy foods… and that’s just the first page of the manual on what not to eat! Of course, any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives are also out.
“I am definitely seeing significantly more orthorexics than just a few years ago,” said Ursula Philpot, chair of the British Dietetic Association’s mental health group. “Other eating disorders focus on quantity of food but orthorexics can be overweight or look normal. They are solely concerned with the quality of the food they put in their bodies, refining and restricting their diets according to their personal understanding of which foods are truly ‘pure’.”
So What is Wrong with Being an Orthorexic?
They are malnourished because they basically don’t eat anything!
The obsession about which foods are “good” and which are “bad” means orthorexics can end up malnourished. Their dietary restrictions commonly cause sufferers to feel proud of their “virtuous” behaviour even if it means that eating becomes so stressful their personal relationships can come under pressure and they become socially isolated.
I wish we could say this post was meant for The Onion – but it really is true. We normally would end with some joke here, but there are just too many possible jokes to make here we can’t pick one. Insert joke here.
Resources:
Read the Full Article in the Guardian
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c566d7c5-384c-443c-b7e7-8b625c21c270)
Email This Post To A Friend!
