Orthorexia, Obsession With Healthy Food
Eating foods low in saturated fat, cholesterol, salt or sugars is one of the usual medical recommendations. However, obsession with every milligram of food we ingest or orthorexia, in addition to not being healthy, can hide an underlying mental disorder.
The hardest part with these obsessive cases is identifying the symptoms. People who suffer from it are apparently healthy, so it is difficult to know when they cross the line between a good habit and a harmful one. So, the question is: where is this line?
What is a healthy diet?
Eating healthy means having complete, varied and balanced nutrition. There is no food that has all the nutrients the body needs and it is therefore important to include the different food groups on our plates (fruits, vegetables, cereals, meats, etc.). All are essential and must be ingested in sufficient quantity for our body.
Therefore, it is very healthy to vary the usual menus and try to include everything. It is only in this way that we will succeed in supplying the daily energy necessary for our body and maintaining optimal functioning.
How can eating healthy not be healthy?
Anything, when taken to extremes, can be harmful. In this case, even if eating healthy is a priori “healthy” behavior, if you only live for it, it quickly turns into an obsession. The pathology associated with this behavior is orthorexia. It was defined in 2000, although it is still a complete unknown for many.
This behavioral disorder is characterized by the development of extremely rigid eating habits, based on the control of the nutritional components of foods and the demonization of a certain type of food.
People with orthorexia only ingest foods from ecological agriculture, that is, free from transgenics, chemicals, pesticides or herbicides. Therefore, their menus are formed only from natural foods, without preservatives or sugars, and free of all types of fats.
To give us an idea, orthorexics refuse to swallow a simple slice of Iberian ham, only because they see the bits of white fat. They can also refuse to drink gazpacho if they learn that the tomatoes in it are not of organic origin.
Even though the World Health Organization (WHO) does not yet recognize it as a disease, it has major consequences on the physical and psychological well-being of the person. The studies carried out have concluded that behind this meticulous obsession, there is usually a mental disorder.
Serious health consequences
Eating behavior disorders are normally progressive. Thus, if the person stops eating industrial bread and processed products a little later and if the disorder develops, it is likely that they are gradually eliminating necessary nutrients such as vegetables or meats from their diet. non-ecological.
These people become more and more demanding and rigid with all that is related to food. They remove more food groups and do not adequately replace them with others, which over time results in significant deficiencies of essential vitamins or minerals. If the case is very severe and the obsession cannot be controlled, the person is likely to become malnourished.
As a consequence of this inadequate diet, they show signs of fatigue and are more vulnerable to disease. Their immune system is affected by reduced levels of sodium in the blood, as well as platelets and red and white blood cells.
In addition to these physiological consequences, on the psychological level, it is people who have high levels of dopamine and low levels of serotonin, who manifest anxiety combined with excessive euphoria.
How to detect a problem with the food?
Normally, people with orthorexia spend hours and hours planning their menus down to the millimeter. Everything they swallow is analyzed and they avoid eating any food that does not meet their strict quality controls. Also, if they break their diet because of some special circumstance, they usually feel very guilty.
They also tend to isolate themselves socially. Ignoring the composition of restaurant menus hinders them when it comes to going out to eat with friends. Therefore, in order not to feel this lack of control, they always end up cooking for themselves.
It is difficult for these people to savor the food because they focus more on the qualities of what they ingest than on its smell, taste or texture. However, few people with orthorexia recognize that they have a problem. This is in part due to the high acceptance in society today of people following a “healthy lifestyle”.
The psychological profile of people with orthorexia
People who are more prone to developing obsessions usually exhibit a very characteristic set of personality traits. In this case, those who tend to obsessively focus on the type and amount of food they swallow have a great need for control in other areas of their lives as well.
This obsession with control often derives from anxiety. An anxiety that can be faced in different ways: one of the most classic is to “rush to the fridge”.
They also show excessive perfectionism in all areas of their life (professional, family, social, etc.), accompanied by high levels of anxiety. Their friends and acquaintances define them as strict, picky, inflexible and very normative people.
The relationship with classic eating disorders
In addition to the risks that we have already described, you should know that orthorexia can be the gateway to certain eating disorders such as anorexia. Even though there is a great relationship, the differences between the two are clear. Patients with anorexia are afraid to gain weight and their bodily self-concept is altered. Therefore, they are not obsessed with the organic origin of a food but with the amount of calories and fat that it has.
There are many benefits to maintaining a healthy diet. Among them, it helps to maintain a healthy relationship between our weight and height; cholesterol is controlled and the risk of suffering from certain cardiovascular diseases disappears. However, all of these benefits go up in smoke when control over food turns into an obsession.
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