rab,

The disorder comes from its being an extreme. The nicotine addict that continues to smoke cigarettes in spite of their being aware of the studies showing conclusively that cigarettes are bad is making a stupid decision to ignore science. The orthorexic that chooses to exclude healthy foods in spite of there being zero science indicating that they are bad is making a pathological decision to deprive themselves of nutrients, and will not stop at excluding merely yellow bananas, but will progress to excluding other healthful foods on, zero scientific basis, to the point of deprivation. That is what makes it a disorder; cigarette smoking ends[usually] with cigarette smoking to a greater or lesser degree over time(and no, not necessarily death, as thousands of Europeans demonstrate). Orthorexia leads necessarily to starvation. The example you give of someone that exludes yellow bananas but eats other things that fill the void of nutrients lost from the avoidance of bananas does not describe someone orthorexic, merely picky.

Tamukha, this is a valid point. Orthorexia is the result of misguided intellect overriding the natural instincts. When one decides that they will eat 1/2 watermelon because they think that this is the food they should eat in order to cleanse and the amount they should eat according to their caloric calculations, then this is an orthorexic behaviour. But when one eats 1/2 watermelon because this is food that their senses directed them to and their hunger decided when to stop or start eating, then this is a healthy, nature-driven behaviour.

Also, I would say that orthorexic behaviours include choosing foods based on tradition and advertisements as examples. I would classify mindless repetition of SAD patterns that lead to malnutrition and disease, as orthorexia too.

Symptoms of orthorexia may include feeling of guilt for being less than perfect in a dietary sense, or attempts to transfer such guilt onto others when they appear to be less than perfect in a dietary sense.


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Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2010 11:52PM by rawgosia.

Well, Tamukha, in theory, I understand - but please, find me, say, a thousand "orthorexic" people in the USA. In return, I will give you a few dozen million of smokers, 300 million of processed food addicts (with terrible consequences).

You will have a very, very hard time finding ONE "orthorexic" person, yet here we are talking our b... off about this "scientific" topic. Like it has any relevance whatsoever. Unless you want to call all of us who don't eat garlic "orthorexic" - which I think is the final intention of the whole idea. They will pronounce us all raw vegans (and maybe even vegetarians) "defective" and in the end, there may be a new, democratic law, that you HAVE TO eat all food, and that your family HAS TO report you if you don't. Paranoid? Not really, just realistic. With the advance of "health" industry, our privacy will be erased.

rab,

Challenging me to find a thousand "orthorexics" misses the point: Orthorexia is a relatively new disorder, considered distinct from plain anorexia. Further, we are not discussing allopathy's definition of it(she's orthorexic because she won't eat fries); we are discussing what raw foodists think about it. That you discount the existence of orthorexia, or the probability of its existence(if there is only one strictly diagnosed orthorexic, this allows for there being thousands)does not render it nonexistent to the rest of us. This is why luvyuu asked everyone's opinion, not just yours. Let the garlic thing go--we have already agreed that avoiding it because it makes you feel physically unwell or less than well is a legitimate reason, and no one on here would call you an orthorexic for it, OK? Finally, tangentially insinuating a conspiracy against healthy food, well, if this sounds reasonable to you, fine. But don't expect the rest of us to agree on that either. And don't assume because we may not, we're in on the "conspiracy," please.

Who is "we" - since when do you represent other people?
Anyway, I have explained why it is absolutely pointless to come up with "orthorexia" when there are so many much more dangerous habbits and conditions that are simply overlooked. I mean thousands of those! But, in a way, I have helped the "orthorexia" idea stay alive, since there is no such thing as "bad" advertising, so they say.

I will now stop posting on this topic, enough is enough.

No one came up with orthorexia to invent a new way to harm oneself. No one "came up with orthorexia" to draw attention away from the dangers of cigarette smoking or low exercise, high processed food, negative lifestyles.

If that's your point, it's quite obvious why everyone else's reasoning goes straight through you. I'm not asking you to agree with me, but it's just hard to take you seriously on this.

cyclopsicle, no, that is not my point. Totally not.

Orthorexia is a condition where your strong attachment to your healthful way of eating at some point stops serving you and starts making you sick - but you still keep eating that way because you can't let go of it.

I think it's really common to get so into a new thing that you go a little overboard for a while. It's all you think about, talk about, do. For A While. If that continues on, if it becomes your life, if it interferes with everything else, if it starts to dominate you and is never good enough, you are always seeking to refine it, work on it, make it better to an excessive degree... well, how healthy is that really? It's an obsession at that point. It's no longer such a good thing.
Diet, as with anything, is only one aspect of a healthy balanced lifestyle.

I agree with coco..

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

...and then you become "normal" again, eat bread like all other human beings, And you stop being orthorexic. Happy end.

rab,

"We" as in, the majority of us in this thread, duh. Don't get why it must be an either or proposition: orthorexia, by whatever your definition is, or SAD. As I said, what makes focus on healthy eating a disorder is extremism. No one is discounting that there are culturally ingrained habits that are more harmful, but this thread was started to discuss what we[raw foodists posting on these Forums] think about "Orthorexia in the raw foods movement." I am going to assume, based on your statements, that you don't believe it's a legitimate disorder, that it doesn't pretain to raw foodism, and that there are more important things to worry about. I agree with the last one, so I'll call it a day

rab Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ...and then you become "normal" again, eat bread
> like all other human beings, And you stop being
> orthorexic. Happy end.

Are you for real? Sheesh buddy.

Tamukha, exactly so. All I have been trying to say from the start is that, even if there are some cases of "orthorexia" somewhere, it is absurd to have media attention (it was on the front page of Yahoo, for example), when nobody even mentiones the consequences of other, much more common diet related conditions and ilnesses. The ration is 1:many million and that is why I think that the attention to such topics is not natural but induced.

Smoking related diseases and other common illnesses, recreational drugs and so on all get similar coverage, just that most already know about them where as orthorexia is relatively new.

WOW!!!!! The reason I started this conversation was because I am in recovery for an eating disorder and being poor i went for help to Overeaters anonymous because free is what I could afford and I couldn't recover by myself. As a raw foodist I knew that people would say well yes of course you have an eating disorder all you eat is fruits and vegetables and you fast and blah blah blah.

When I started questioning myself as having a disorder I started to do some reading about the various labels. Orthorexia had a short page or two in the first book I read and I, like you RAB, reacted very defensively about it, with very similar words "oh that's just monsanto trying to debunk the healthy eating world because they'll lose money if we all start eating healthy." They won't lose money they'll just slime their way into the health food market... actually they probably already have.

Anyhow, I found a sponsor who is understanding of the rawfoods world and I thought she would be good for me because of this and she brought up Orthorexia to me. She suggested I read THE book and I hummed and hawed about it and said oh media this and that and then found that "the book" was not even in print anymore. I had to special order it.

I didn't learn this from the media powers that be trying to corrupt me back to the dark side of the SAD world... and I am all about conspiracy theories and believe it to be true that food scientists do create food to create addiction to create income to create mind control... but they only have control if I give it to them... and quite honestly I just don't care to fight that fight anymore.

what I care about is my health and I'm tired of being the healthiest eating person in the room while still being the sickest... but then that is just a quick change of my state of mind isn't it.? It sounds so simple!!!

So am I orthorexic because I'm raw? NO! Am I raw because I'm Orthorexic quite possibly... am I orthorexic at all? I did think that raw foods would make everything better and I still have pain ...even in the restricted eating world that keeps me mostly pain free... Can a recovering orthorexic stay in the raw foods world??? I guess it's a great lesson for me that it is not outside of us where we find true healing but with in.

I do not believe Orthorexia and Raw foodists are one in the same but if you have such a strong defensive reaction to something maybe you should take a good honest look at yourself and why you are reacting this way.

Thank you for your wisdom
love laugh and dream

luvyuu - you don't bring any facts, just speculation. I have elaborated my logic several times, check my previous postings.

"Am I raw because I'm Orthorexic quite possibly" - that is the utter nonsense, without any grounds or evidence. Raw people limit the amount of UNHEALTHY food, but they, most of them, EAT A LOT OF DIFFERENT HEALTHY FOOD. They are in best physical shape of their lives, most of them resolving a lot of ilnesses, pains and health problems by simply leaving burnt and processed (dead) food behind.


To me, this topic is over.

How do you feel Rab about the raw fooders who also eliminate healthy foods?

Just curious on your thoughts.

Ortho-rexia means correct-eating. "Nervosa" might mean obsessively? I wish I ate more correctly and am trying to find some kind of balance. My dietary choices affect my life, some for better, some worse.

A group of doctors were studied and 45% were found to be orthorexic--


[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

rab,

Eh, as luvyuu was the one who started this thread(to work things out for herself with our help), she can speculate all she wants about her motivations for starting the thread and her analysis of its contents.

Also, there is nothing inherently illogical about the luvyuu speculating that her pre-existing eating disorder has led to possible orthorexia; if this is a reasonable explanation for her approach to food then it must necessarily be logical.

luvyuu,

I hope that you are able to arrive at the most likely reasons for what's going on with you, and how to correct it. I wish you, as always, the very best of health that you can achieve, dear

The Turks are on board with the study of orthorexia nervosa (ON) doing another large study in 2008 --

[www.turkpsikiyatri.com]

They see the classification orthorexia nervosa as another tool in the study of eating habits, finding increased incidence of ON in Turkish women, yet noting in Italy it's more with men maybe due to cultural influences.

Hail luvyuu
Brave of you to share your experience strength and hope here, however having trolled through all the posts, I think only those who suffer can really understand or help you recover from it. I have often asked myself this question of the raw food world.
I too am a friend of Bill { and came to raw food lifestle as a way to help me reduce my maximum density, which had reached gargantuan proportions. I already had an unhealthy relationship to food and have, so far, used a high raw food lifestyle to release 105 lbs in two years. 40 lbs to goal!
In the beginning I was very high raw and doing well until I wasn't. Low fat low protein and vegan. When it stopped "working" I found myself getting into the purity discussion in my head, am I eating "clean" enough. Stressing myself out, definitely orthorexic thinking. I had to start listening to my own body first, and find out what works for me right now, despite the best intended advice of others. I had to increase my healthy fat levels to more than 10% at certain times of my cycle, which has slowed my weight loss, yet I find the benefits of more even blood sugar a significant aspect, which helps with my stress and energy management ect.
There is nothing wrong with investigating what works for you, even eliminating healthy foods if they don't agree with you. This is what freedom is all about. I know I am still transitioning, that it is also up to me how long that will last, however if all i do is focus on food, healthy or not, then somehow I have missed the point. Today I eat to live not live to eat, and my journey of learning about my health and nutrition has just started.
Since my health has improved, life is just magnificent, even when it sucks, if you know what I mean. I have had to adjust my food plan several times in these two years and that is not easy for me. i like being lazy, which is another reason I like the raw food, its quick and not too much clean up. Today I am refining my live-it focusing on eating to time, listening to my body for rest, taking naps when i need them, forgiving myself if taking care of myself upsets others (which it often does) and definitely watching my fat and protein intake, though there are days...
My key is to be low key, not get into power driven arguments over it. Today I eat raw food because I haven't felt this vibrant and sprightly since I was an athletic teenager. I want to stay loving to others who have not yet found this way because that was me too. I couldn't find it until i was ready for it, until the pain of a compulsive SAD die-it became too great. Until the more nourishing and loving pain of recovery (and a life without SAD) especially as my past decisions around food had to be faced. This way became the easier softer way, as I take my guidance from higher spiritual forces. Still vigilance is the key. It is easy for me to become obsessed with anything, if I let self will run riot.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the raw food lifestyle is so diverse, as are the people who choose it. I can't judge anyone because I am only perfectly imperfect just doing the best I can one day at a time, keeping it as simple as possible. I think the point raised about the bowl of lettuce is a valid one, to someone who suffers from an eating disorder, because at the end of the day, there is no magic food plan!
I haven't been here for a while and I am happy to be posting, missed you all.
Bless

Hey OkunDeji welcome back and glad to see you !

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

OkunDeji! So nice to see you here again, and to read your wise words, always so positive--love it!

OkunDeji, that was a brilliantly beautiful post and that picture of you is Wonderful! Such happy vibrance! Gorgeous.

Thank you...OkunDeji... I appreciate your wise words... You are an inspiration and I am very glad to hear from you... my goal is to eat to live and to enjoy life with out the worry of food... i do believe i have missed a few points here and there and am struggling and praying to be restored to a more sane way of being what ever that may be for me!!! One day at a time... One moment at a time!!!

love laugh and dream