Orthorexia – obsession with healthy eating

Orthorexia is an eating disorder that involves obsession with healthy food. Although most think that eating only healthy food can be harmful, experts say otherwise.

We are sure that most of you who are reading this article it is impossible to think that healthy food becomes unhealthy, but as we all know is not what should not be exaggerated, and so thought i dr. Steven Bratman who has this disorder, wrote a book. On orthorexia described as a disease in which people perceive food as a means to feel healthy and filled with not only the physical but also the spiritual level. What is a healthy diet extreme and restrictive to the sick person feel better, but over time it grew into an obsession. Experts warn that orthorexia can lead to extreme weight loss and malnutrition, while dr. Bratman believes that orthorexia is more a threat to the physical but mental health. The moment when the diet is affecting the social life by avoiding gatherings, dinners and lunches for the avoidance of unhealthy food, you have a problem.

What’s wrong with healthy food?

Treatment for this condition can be very difficult because people have a problem to understand that healthy food can be unhealthy. “The most important thing is to find the root of the problem,” says Heidi Levine-Miller, a therapist from California. “People are burdened with many things, not just diet, have serious emotional problems and finding deeper reasons, more easily accepted normal diet.”

Lewin-Miller says that from this disorder suffer equally by both men and women, but the causes are different. In women, the primary cause of this disorder is the loss of weight, while men desire to “look good”. A healthy diet, she says, is not a bad thing, but keeping a strict diet for the wrong reasons can lead to a last negative.

How to recognize orthorexia?

• Nutritional value of foods you enjoy is more important than the food.
• You feel self-esteem after you eat a healthy meal.
• Meals are planning several days in advance if you’re not pressed for time.
• You feel guilty when you eat something fatty, sweet, unhealthy …
• After a few hours a day thinking about healthy food.
• Your diet is impoverished your social life.
• You have become stricter in the selection of foods you buy and eat.
• You feel absolute peace and control after strictly follow a healthy diet.