Orthorexia nervosa is one of a little-known group of eating disorders. The term uses "ortho," in its meaning as straight, correct and true, to modify "anorexia nervosa." Orthorexia nervosa refers to a fixation on eating proper food.
In Eating for Perfection, authors David Michael Knight CHT and Steven Bratman MD describe orthorexia. “Orthorexia begins innocently enough, as a desire to overcome chronic illness or to improve general health. Over time, what they eat, how much, and the consequences of dietary indiscretion come to occupy a greater and greater proportion of the orthorexic's day. The act of eating pure food begins to carry pseudo-spiritual connotations. As orthorexia progresses, a day filled with sprouts, umeboshi plums and amaranth biscuits comes to feel as holy as one spent serving the poor and homeless.”
Treatment is tricky, however, because orthorexics "will consider drugs such as antidepressants to be 'impure' and unnatural," wrote Dr. Steven Bratman, who is credited with coining the term in the 1990s."
There is some controversy regarding orthorexia as a disease, and many view simply as a health phenomena. Douglas Bunnell, president of the National Eating Disorders Association, believes that while orthorexia may be important as a lay concept, in terms of treatment it differs from anorexia only in the finer points.
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Related Resources
wikipedia.org: Orthorexia
Orthorexia.com: Orthorexia
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