The newest eating disorder: Orthorexia
Jess, a West Coast resident who asked that her last name not be used, showed up at the dinner party with a bag of her own food: greens, fruit, a little Tupperware of chicken. She was just trying to eat really healthy, she said. Bread was out of the question, and she couldn’t eat the beans in the soup, so that was off-limits, too.
Low-calorie, low-fat, sure. But food-restrictive eating, like Jess’s, can be signs of orthorexia, an increasingly common form of disordered eating. Unlike anorexia, which addresses how much you eat, orthorexia is about what you eat. And nutritionists and psychologists say that they’re seeing it more often, especially in the face of restrictive food trends, like gluten-free, and growing information about where food comes from, and how it’s grown and processed.
Orthorexia isn’t exactly new. Dr. Steven Bratman coined the term in 1997, but since then it’s been flitting on the fringes of formal diagnosis. It’s been lumped in with other eating disorders, like avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, or considered a form of OCD.
But recently there’s been a rise in research about it, and there’s a movement afoot to parse it out from other forms of disordered eating for inclusion in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the bible of psychiatric disorders.
"The message in the past has mainly been about thinness but there’s been a turn and it’s become more about cleanness and purity," says nutrition therapist Sondra Kronberg, who says that she’s seeing it more frequently. "Those same people who struggle with compulsion and rigidity in their eating will take that cultural message to an extreme. It interferes with their quality of life."
Last summer orthorexia made news when widely read vegan food blogger Jordan Younger announced that she’d been suffering from it, and that her hyper-restrictive diet had both made her sick—she’d stopped getting her period and had hormonal imbalances—and sent her into panic attacks in the grocery store. "I had known in the back of my mind for a while that I had developed many fears surrounding food, and it was clear to me that I was becoming more and more limited in what I was comfortable eating," she says. No two eating disorder cases are alike, but Younger is somewhat typical of what’s seen as orthorexia. She says she has an "all or nothing" personality that made her prone to compulsive healthy eating, and that her heavy digital involvement made it even harder to break off. She said she became even more compulsive because she was posting everything she was eating, and comparing herself to other people’s Instagrams.
more...
http://www.fastcompany.com/3041330/body-week/the-newest-eating-disorder-to-maybe-enter-dsm-orthorexia
Someone I know was borderline like this. He'd actually panic when our circle of friends would discuss places to have dinner.
= new reply since forum marked as read
but trying to avoid it is considered mental illness?
Data released in August 2013 in the American Journal of Public Health suggested that obesity's death toll on Americans is more than three times previous estimates and is associated with nearly one in five U.S. deaths. Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's number of 2.5 million mortalities in 2010, that comes to about half a million people annually.
But no one pays attention.
<snip>
Research has found that every person who isn't obese has a 2 percent chance of becoming obese within a year because of their sedentary lifestyle and access to unhealthy foods. But it has been estimated that this number rises by 0.5 percent for every obese person they socialize with, meaning that knowing just four obese people can double a person's risk of becoming obese.
Also, making up new words (neologisms like "orthorexia"
is considered a sign of schizophrenia.
The new DSM is full of them.
Doctor, heal thyself!
my fasting blood sugar has been creeping up over the years (first had gestational diabetes 19 years ago) and it's getting high enough now my doctor is concerned. So, I thought, let's have a look at Paleo.
LOL my first thought was yours too. Coconut oil? I'm sure my ice-age European ancestors ate that daily. 
It's a little too restrictive for me. I've done low carb before and I'll probably try that again, with less 'fake bread' stuff though and just more fresh food.
My mom is obsessive about exercise too, but it's funny - she looks down on people who 'need' the gym or classes (Even though she used to take them eons ago). She does it all herself, spends hours formulating her work out plans for the week, tracking how many repetitions of weights...etc. Classes are for people who don't know what they are doing. Amateurs. 
*sigh* I agree though, lots of brainwashing (I swear, my mom looks just like Michelle Duggar talking about Jim-Bob, with that glazed look over her eyes when she talks about the newest cure-all fad diet and how great it is) but you know. Follow the money. 
It really is a problem in restaurants. Thank you so much for being aware of the waiters' plight. 
We go out of our way to get customers what they want, and appreciate that people are sensitive to certain things, and want to be healthy, or whatever their motivation is, but there really are a lot of people who are simply a pain in the ass just to be cool.... or something. I don't know. (I know we live in the same metro area....I work in Highland Park.... you can imagine 
)
If they have a issues, they can bring their own food or shut up and smile, or not show up. This is why I don't have dinner parties.
There will be plenty of food to please even the pickiest of eaters. Sauteed veggies, salad, homemade garlic bread, veg appetizers should fill them up. I have that Italian Grandmother gene in me that won't let anyone go away hungry!
February birthdays, so I can't really un-invite people. I think they will make do with a side of salad and vegetables while the main celebrants get the benefit of my gourmet cooking. I do try to make everyone happy. Nobody will go away hungry, that is for sure.
It just kind of annoys me that there seem to be so many people these days that can't eat a basic meal. BTW, planning on cooking chicken parmesan, baked shells, sauteed broccolini, salad, garlic bread and plenty of apps. Tiramisu for dessert. Thanks for your post! 
Some of us do have diagnosed celiac disease, and let me tell you - we don't LIKE living like this. Something as small as a kitchen making a ceasar salad "gluten free" by removing the croutons that were sprinkled on it can make me swell and be sick for days. It is really lonely. I used to meet friends several times a month to try the newest/latest restaurants in town, but because inadvertent wheat can trigger a reaction, it was embarrassing and uncomfortable to eat out. While I feel TONS better, I really, really miss that.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]
But it's easy and takes little effort. I stick to meat, eggs, cheeses, most vegetables, nuts, olive oil and a few fruits. I stay away from processed meats, dairy (except cheese), gluten, rice, and sugar. I can eat everything with no problems but mainly just try to limit the carbs so I maintain my weight.
I give myself one cheat day a month though and it's today. So far I've had three corn dogs and going to do a pizza later
And becoming totally obsessed with one's food intake, especially when making others miserable and/or uncomfortable while doing so.
My brother eats "no carbs". So when he visits from a couple hours away (which was often in the past few years dealing with the final illnesses and deaths of our elderly parents) we can only go to restaurants that will accommodate him. That isn't really hard but the lectures are worse, every meal. 
