'Orthorexia'
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:
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.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?
"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...
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Korn
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. 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!! 
. I find it all too easy to have all out binges on Vegan food 
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