3:23am May 3, 2013

➸ The Health Food Eating Disorder

This is the original article written about orthorexia. I feel compelled to mention it after a night of messed up triggering stuff from a book that was otherwise good, but reminded me too much of my years restricting food more and more to become more and more “pure”, and also losing more weight than I’ve ever lost in a short period of time, even when severely ill from gastroparesis. Here’s a quote from the article describing how orthorexia works:

“Orthorexia begins innocently enough, as a desire to overcome chronic illness or to improve general health. But because it requires considerable willpower to adopt a diet which differs radically from the food habits of childhood and the surrounding culture, few accomplish the change gracefully. Most must resort to an iron self-discipline bolstered by a hefty sense of superiority over those who eat junk food. 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. When an orthorexic slips up, (which, depending on the pertinent theory, may involve anything from devouring a single raisin in violation of the law to consuming a gallon of Haagen Daz ice cream and a supreme pizza), he experiences a fall from grace, and must take on numerous acts of penitence. These usually involve ever stricter diets and fasts.

Over time, this “kitchen spirituality” begins to override other sources of meaning. An orthorexic will be plunged into gloom by eating a hot dog, even if his team has just won the world series. Conversely, he can redeem any disappointment by extra efforts at dietary purity.

Orthorexia eventually reaches a point where the sufferer spends most of his time planning, purchasing and eating meals. The orthorexic’s inner life becomes dominated by efforts to resist temptation, self-condemnation for lapses, self-praise for success at complying with the self-chosen regime, and feelings of superiority over others less pure in their dietary habits.

It is this transference of all life’s value into the act of eating which makes orthorexia a true disorder. In this essential characteristic, orthorexia bears many similarities to the two named eating disorders: anorexia and bulemia. Whereas the bulimic and anorexic focus on the quantity of food, the orthorexic fixates on its quality. All three give to food a vastly excessive place in the scheme of life.”

The author also mentions how a lot of food fads and movements can feed into orthorexia and he’s absolutely right. While some people claim eating disorders have nothing to do with any outside influence whatsoever, they actually can. And yes, it’s an actual eating disorder. I’m not sure I’d have survived if someone hadn’t shown me an article about it (possibly this very one) and I realized what was happening to me. And it wasn’t easy to pull out of it, as if any eating disorder is easy to pull out of. But more on that in different posts.

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