Unlike bulimia and anorexia nervosa, people with orthorexia nervosa are worried about staying healthy rather than staying thin. They make up an elaborate set of rules around eating and often end up limiting themselves to a few food choices that they do not consider harmful to their bodies or to the environment.
"While orthorexia begins with a desire to achieve better health, it's very connected to an underlying fear of food," said Dr. Ellen Astrachan-Fletcher, director of the eating disorders clinic at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "If I believe the food will make me sick, I become afraid of it, and I avoid it and, bit by bit, continue to avoid more and more food types." Such behavior can lead to becoming underweight and malnourished.
Victims of orthorexia nervosa often have trouble eating in public. In extreme cases, their main interest in life becomes their obsession with following their various food rules.
Dr. Astrachan-Fletcher and others believe that orthorexia nervosa should be treated through psychotherapy in the same way psychiatrists treat other eating disorders.
An estimated 11 million Americans suffer from eating disorders.
Labels: orthorexia
Posted By: Aspen/CRC
