PDA

View Full Version : 'Orthorexia'



Pages : [1] 2

Korn
Oct 9th, 2006, 09:07 AM
I've seen the term orthorexia mentioned a couple of places, mainly by people who clearly can be defined as 'anti-vegans'.

Here's the questions people are supposed to use as a reference in order to find out if they suffer from orthorexia or not:



Are you spending more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food?
Are you planning tomorrow's menu today?
Is the virtue you feel about what you eat more important than the pleasure you receive from eating it?
Has the quality of your life decreased as the quality of your diet increased?
Have you become stricter with yourself?
Does your self-esteem get a boost from eating healthy?
Do you look down on others who don't eat this way? Do you skip foods you once enjoyed in order to eat the "right" foods?
Does your diet make it difficult for you to eat anywhere but at home, distancing you from friends and family.
Do you feel guilt or self-loathing when you stray from your diet?
When you eat the way you're supposed to, do you feel in total control?

Of course there are neurotic and obsessive people who are vegans, and neurotic/obsessive behavior can be dangerous. But when looking at the questions above, it looks like this list could generate a false feeling of suffering from an obsession among people who only want to stay healthy, help animals and the environment, and get rid of bad, old eating habits.

"Have you become stricter with yourself?" Since the term strict often is used about people who 'strictly' avoid meat/eggs/dairy products, isn't this question kind of odd? If a person for a long time have wanted to eat more ethical/healthy, and therefore become vegans, this doesn't need to mean that there is anything neurotic or eating disorder like in being strict. A vegan who avoid animal products isn't more 'strict' than a non-violent person who 'strictly' avoids harming or killing humans....

"Do you skip foods you once enjoyed in order to eat the "right" foods?"
Of course we do! Kids normally learn/are trained to enjoy the food they are given by their parents, so when moving from eating what our parents gave us to eating what we actually want to eat, of course lots of vegans and lacto-vegetarians skip foods they once enjoyed in order to eat what what we actually want to and agree in. How can such a question be part of defining an eating disorder?

"Does your diet make it difficult for you to eat anywhere but at home, distancing you from friends and family?" I personally don't, but veggies who live in areas with few vegan/vegetarian options may feel that way, and for a reason: our society is for various reasons more or less obsessed with animal products, and of course, some people may find it difficult to find vegan food in some areas: not because they have an eating disorder, but because food without animal products may be hard to find in some areas (but more available than ever).

"Does your self-esteem get a boost from eating healthy?" I think all people who are able to change from a diet they actually never have chosen to eating what they actually want to eat, and to eat healthy will feel better about themselves, just like a person who has been sitting in a chair at work/home for 20 years and finally gets a bike or kayak and starts to get in better shape will feel better about himself. But should increased self-esteem as a result of health improvements be used as an indication for having an eating disorder? No!

"Do you look down on others who don't eat this way?" Many pre-vegans may have been admiring vegans before they went vegan (for being able to live according to their viewpoints), but that doesn't mean that they look down on non-vegans after they become vegans. Still, they may 'look down on' actions that cause death and suffering for innocent animals. I can't see that this should be used as a reference for diagnosing an eating disorder. Maybe 'looking down on' people or being judgmental (in one meaning of the word) always is neurotic, but that's very different from setting up a list like this and tell people that if you answered yes to two or three of these questions, they may have a mild case of orthorexia.

"When you eat the way you're supposed to, do you feel in total control?" I think most people are interested in 'control' of over their lives, in the positive meaning f the word. If a person who grows into a lifestyle and viewpoints which may be difficult to follow because others (with a different lifestyle/viewpoints) control what kind if ingredients that are used in school lunches, cafe food, and products we buy in general, of course it's satisfying to be able to reclaim the right to decide ('control') what we eat and to choose to be able eat something according to what we feel is right/healthy etc. Everybody wants to be able to live according to the lifestyle they have chosen instead of being controlled but others. But this has nothing to do with 'control' in the negative meaning of the word. More than anything else, it can't be wrong NOT to want to control (in a negative way) how animals should live, and the only way to be a vegan, is to let go of the false right to control the lives of animals that we have been trained to believe that we humans are given. Being a non-vegan always implies (negative) control over others' (animals') lives.

If answering yes to a few of these questions means that we should consider ourselves suffering from a eating disorder, I'd say that the term orthorexia either is another silly attempt of anti-veggie propaganda, or that it's definition is so wrong/inaccurate that it can't be used for any kind of diagnosis, except diagnosing the agenda of the person who invented it... :)

Smoothie
Oct 9th, 2006, 09:20 AM
i don't agree with you. if you do have problems with yourself and you suffer from an eating disorder - then it doesn't matter if it's anorexia, bulimia, bing-eating or orthorexia. if healthy eating is something that makes your life hard to live, then you ARE too obsessive about it. there is a clear line - when you're sick, and when you're not.

harpy
Oct 9th, 2006, 09:32 AM
I think orthorexia is probably a genuine disorder, but if the term is being used to categorise vegans as a group then it's being misused.

It would be quite wrong to categorise vegans generally as obsessed with healthy eating. Didn't we have a poll that showed that health was at most a secondary consideration for most of us in becoming vegan?

eve
Oct 9th, 2006, 09:37 AM
Reading the threads on this forum, one could be forgiven for thinking that obsessing about food, health, health problems, really are vegan attributes. To be truthful, I've never come across so many people with health problems - real or imagined - as are portrayed here.

Korn
Oct 9th, 2006, 09:52 AM
That could be because people with health problems more easily go vegan than others, because they have personal needs for health improvements helping them to take the big step. Or that people with problems post more about their problems than people who don't have problems, for obvious reason. Or maybe they feel that they can get useful advice hear that they can't get from their doctor, because doctors normally know little about (vegan) nutrition?

PygmyGoat
Oct 9th, 2006, 10:02 AM
^ or it could be that through Veganism some people learn a lot more about health and with this new knowledge wish to recognise and overcome some personal health problems in order to get more out of life.

harpy
Oct 9th, 2006, 10:05 AM
Or maybe they feel that they can get useful advice hear that they can't get from their doctor, because doctors normally know little about (vegan) nutrition?


Yes, and they are also often hoping to avoid conventional (tested-on-animals) treatments as far as possible I imagine. (Of course, it isn't always possible.)

sandra
Oct 9th, 2006, 10:16 AM
There will always be people who have food related disorders, but it has nothing to do with being vegan. I can only speak for myself of course but food isn't that important to me, of course I need it to stay alive but I don't obsess about it.
If I have problems because I'm vegan, it's not to do with the food I eat, or my attitude to it, but the world I live in.
Being vegan has improved my health enormously, I have no more trouble with stomach ulcers and my OCD is practically non existant, so how can that be a bad thing? I disagree with you Eve that vegans obsess about food and health, I know quite a few non-vegans who do exactly that!
I'm sure on a forum for omnivores you would get the same sort of discussions about health as you do here, only in a different context.
If they are now trying to say that because you are vegan you are sufferring from a disorder, they are deluding themselves, as for me being vegan has very little to do with what I eat and more about what I don't eat.

Korn
Oct 9th, 2006, 10:17 AM
i don't agree with you. if you do have problems with yourself and you suffer from an eating disorder - then it doesn't matter if it's anorexia, bulimia, bing-eating or orthorexia. if healthy eating is something that makes your life hard to live, then you ARE too obsessive about it. there is a clear line - when you're sick, and when you're not.

The reason that orthorexia is questioned, is that according to it's definition, most people who are vegans/into natural, healthy food would be described as having some degree of orthorexia.

When, at the same time, people who use that term say that orthorexia may start in a very mild, innocent way and develop into serious health problems, the term itself can be used to make people critical against changing their diet/lifestyle in a vegan/heathy direction. Look at the questions again - several of them definitely doesn't make sense.


if you do have problems with yourself and you suffer from an eating disorder - then it doesn't matter if it's anorexia, bulimia, bing-eating or orthorexia But 'having problems with yourself' or 'suffering' isn't needed to be diagnosed with orthoroxia... Any vegan or rawfoodist or lacto-vegetarian who come across the few people that actually use the term orthorexia may be diagnised as orthorectic.



if healthy eating is something that makes your life hard to live, then you ARE too obsessive about it. there is a clear line - when you're sick, and when you're not Since most adults and kids live in a society where food that has a been documented as unhealthy is available almost everywhere, and healthy, plant based, organic food is difficult to find in many areas, how hard it is to follow a lifestyle you agree in is totally dependent on where and you live, and may have nothing to do with eating disorders at all. I'm sure that if you ask someone who was a vegan 30-40-50 years ago how hard it was to be vegan then compared with how hard it is now, you'll understand what I mean! :)

harpy
Oct 9th, 2006, 11:18 AM
I think that list of questions is a bit misleading. It could pick up vegans and also, for example, Jewish people who decide to eat kosher, whereas they don't fall under what I understand to be the usual definition of orthorexia, which is an obsession with healthy eating, as opposed to an adherence to dietary rules.

Of course vegans can become "obsessive" about veganism but whether it's a problem is to some extent a matter of opinion. The discussions here about whether you should worry about traces of animal products in your food show that different people draw the line in different places.

Korn
Oct 9th, 2006, 11:37 AM
Of course vegans can become "obsessive" about veganism but whether it's a problem is to some extent a matter of opinion.
I think Smoothie has a very good point (the one about actually suffering and actually having an easting disorder).

It's also easy to see that eating vegan, which by outsiders may be seen as something very restrictive, or any other lifestyle that involves staying away from things most people do every day, can attract people with certain neurotic patterns and maybe even be used in a negative way to 'feed the neurosis'. But being afraid of making your own decisions in life, avoid anything that makes you sticking out from a crowd and feeling that you always have to do and eat what most others eat and do may be at least as neurotic, and may even be more dangerous in the long run.

RedWellies
Oct 9th, 2006, 11:40 AM
Is Orthorexia a new word/illness? I'd not heard it before reading another post on the forum. To be honest, I thought the poster had just spelt anorexia incorrectly :o

harpy
Oct 9th, 2006, 11:41 AM
It must exist - it's in the Torygraph ;)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2004/11/01/horthos01.xml

Korn
Oct 9th, 2006, 11:44 AM
It's a word invented by a certain doctor (don't remember his name right now) - a word that covers a disease that others question if actually exists in the form it is described.

harpy
Oct 9th, 2006, 11:50 AM
(don't remember his name right now).

Steve Bratman
http://www.orthorexia.com/index.php?page=Bratman

RedWellies
Oct 9th, 2006, 11:56 AM
Humans are funny creatures. We can apparently manage to get sick and die from trying to be healthy! That's quite funny!

PygmyGoat
Oct 9th, 2006, 12:16 PM
There's a name for everything these days!!! :rolleyes: .

harpy
Oct 9th, 2006, 12:24 PM
Yes, if it exists it would just be a form of OCD I would think. Not sure why it needs a special name, except that it may help people to make some money out of it :rolleyes:

sandra
Oct 9th, 2006, 12:51 PM
There should be a term for people who obsess over unhealthy eating! Look at the way omnivores obsess about food, all the books and t.v programmes dedicated to food. It really annoys me when there's food programmes on t.v and they sit there for half an hour discussing a particular 'dish' and how it is presented. It's obscene when there are people starving in the world, that all they worry about is making plates of food with tiny little parcels of this, that and the other in them. That's what I call obsessing about food, but nobody questions that attitude do they?

PygmyGoat
Oct 9th, 2006, 04:53 PM
^ I so agree, Sandra!! :p . I just don't get that - people spending hours making dead things into 'food' dishes and travelling miles out of their way just to buy particularly expensive ingredients - and feeling proud that they do, rather than embarrassed!! :rolleyes: .

Wishin986
Oct 9th, 2006, 11:44 PM
Orthorexia is a relatively new disorder, or the diagnosis is new. I think the difference between veganism and orthorexia is emotionally based. Eating Disorders revolve around fear, if there is an intense fear of foods that are not 'safe' foods. Again its centered around self-hatred and control. Just being vegan and wanting to eat healthily is not going to get you a diagnosis of orthorexia.

thecatspajamas1
Oct 10th, 2006, 05:41 AM
Is this "disorder" in the DSM IV? Or is it just a term used by one doctor who made it up?

harpy
Oct 10th, 2006, 09:22 AM
Is this "disorder" in the DSM IV? Or is it just a term used by one doctor who made it up?

Neither of these - I think he coined the term after DSM IV was published, but other people seem to be using it now and I suppose it might find its way into a future DSM

eve
Oct 10th, 2006, 09:42 AM
... If I have problems because I'm vegan, it's not to do with the food I eat, or my attitude to it, but the world I live in. ...

I disagree with you Eve that vegans obsess about food and health, I know quite a few non-vegans who do exactly that! I'm sure on a forum for omnivores you would get the same sort of discussions about health as you do here, only in a different context.

Yes, sandra, the world we live in - that's what is mostly on my mind - seeing and reading about the tragedy of Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Chechnya, and many other places. Also learning about how the big pharmaceutical companies are more powerful than the powerful US government. Then there's climate change, the environment, the insidious changes to food through genetic engineering, the increasing numbers of people seeking refuge, and on top of all this and plenty more, there is the never ending population growth, ensuring that whatever steps are taken to deal with the environment, those steps can never be sufficient to offset the tragedies.

With all this going on, sorry if so many real or imagined health disorders are not at the top of everyone's list of concern. But I agree with you, sandra, that omnivores also obsess about food, and like you I find annoying all the books, newspaper articles, and tv programs dedicated to their appetites. It certainly is obscene that with people starving in the world, all they worry about is making plates of food with tiny little parcels of this, that and the other in them.

I apologise if my postings have offended.

mango
Oct 10th, 2006, 09:43 AM
Orthorexia is a relatively new disorder, or the diagnosis is new. I think the difference between veganism and orthorexia is emotionally based. Eating Disorders revolve around fear, if there is an intense fear of foods that are not 'safe' foods. Again its centered around self-hatred and control. Just being vegan and wanting to eat healthily is not going to get you a diagnosis of orthorexia.

Maybe not from a reasonable doctor, but there are a lot of fanatical doctors around, and more importantly it gives anti-vegans yet another nonsensical way to attack vegans.