What is Orthorexia?
Orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession with a healthy lifestyle. Things like abstaining from red meat, eating fruits and vegetables, and working out regularly are fine and recommended by doctors, but feeling bad about eating junk food or crying whenever you gain a pound is a different story. When you have orthorexia, you’re allowing the food you eat to dictate who you are as a person.
Why is It Bad for You?
Orthorexia is bad for you because it develops an extremely unhealthy relationship with food. With orthorexia, you’re not eating because you desire to be physically and mentally healthy—you’re eating because you’re afraid of gaining weight or being unhealthy for even just a second. You think about putting your body through strenuous situations just to lose one more pound or gain more muscle, not realizing that your body’s already beautiful in itself!
For example, wanting to lose weight is a desire many people have. Being overweight or obese has many negative effects on your health, and losing even a small percentage of weight can reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes by a mile. However, going on juice cleanses or working out three hours a day isn’t the way to go. It almost seems like you’re punishing your body for being overweight instead of encouraging it to be healthy.
Another way orthorexia is bad for you is by being too stringent with your food. Eating healthy food is a must for everyone, but letting loose once in a while with a scoop of ice cream or a sleeve of cookies isn’t going to kill you. Going out to eat or drink with your friends isn’t a bad thing. But people with orthorexia often let food get in the way of socializing, making them feel guilty about doing completely normal things. This leads to isolation and paranoia.
What are the Symptoms of Orthorexia?
Worried that you might be suffering from orthorexia? Before you start panicking, make sure to ask yourself the following questions first:
- Am I so focused on eating clean and healthy that it’s starting to affect my life? Do I do things like refuse to hang out with friends who want to eat unhealthy food, work out to the point my muscles are sore and painful, or feel stressed out whenever I don’t get my healthy food fix, for example?
- Do I beat myself up whenever I eat something unhealthy? Do I feel unnecessarily grossed out or disgusted by unhealthy foods? Do I judge people who eat these unhealthy foods?
- Do I associate my self-worth with the food I eat? For example, do I consider myself a lazy and thoughtless person because I satisfy my cravings for unhealthy food once in a while?
- Do I often think about loosening my self-imposed diet but cannot find the strength to? For example, do I want to eat whatever I want on my birthday but end up just eating what I usually eat?
- Are there more foods I cannot eat than I can eat? Do I follow a lot of health trends and crazes and even do them at the same time? For example, do I try to do keto, intermittent fasting, and high-intensity workouts all at once?
- Am I suffering from the negative effects of losing too much weight? Do I have malnutrition? Do I have symptoms like hair loss, brittle nails, irregular periods, or lethargy?
If you’ve answered yes to at least two of these questions, then you might have orthorexia.
How Can You Manage Your Condition?
Like many other eating disorders, orthorexia is an affliction of the mind and thus needs to be assessed by a therapist or other mental health professional. However, even the world’s leading therapist will be useless if you don’t want to help yourself first. They’re there to guide you, but ultimately the one driving the car will be you.
Start by reshaping how you think about food. Food isn’t inherently evil and cannot determine how good or bad of a person you are. Food is not supposed to be a chore—it’s supposed to be a way to bond with your loved ones, enjoy what life has to offer, and celebrate being alive. And most importantly of all, food is something your body needs to survive, and without food, your quality of life will be poor.
You should also rethink health. It isn’t just a number on the weighing scale. Health is also how happy you are with your lifestyle and how comfortable you are in your own body. Health isn’t just about physical health—it’s also about mental health!
Additionally, health isn’t everything you read on the Internet—no celebrity should ever tell you that you’re unhealthy for doing something completely normal. No influencer should ever make you feel bad for not looking like them. You’re in charge of your own life, not theirs, and they’re not in charge of you either.
Once you learn to let go of the harmful mindsets associated with orthorexia, the easier it will be to recover.
