What is Orthorexia Nervosa?

Choosing to eat organic, unprocessed foods as part of a healthy diet is a reasonable choice. Obsessing over the purity the food to the point that it interferes with your quality of life is not.

Orthorexia nervosa is an eating disorder caused by an unhealthy obsession with pure foods. Many orthorexics are vegan or raw foodists, never straying from their diet. They may believe impure food is poison or could give them cancer. Others follow these rigid diets because they think they can attain perfection.

Although it doesn't seem as severe as anorexia nervosa, it is. Orthorexia nervosa is such a new diagnosis that it hasn't been included in the DSM-IV yet, but there are still numerous reports of orthorexics suffering from numerous complications, including malnutrition, excessive weight loss, and extreme mental disturbances. Although the intent is different, orthorexics experience many complications similar, but not identical, to anorexia nervosa.

Learn more about orthorexia nervosa below.

• An unhealthy obsession with pure foods
• An obsession with eating right that interferes with a person's ability to function
• Extreme anxiety or distress over eating "bad" foods
• Having a pure diet become one's identity
• Going to extreme lengths to find pure foods
• Planning meals days or weeks in advance
• Avoiding friends or family in fear of eating impure foods
• Calling pure foods "safe", "pure" or "good"

Additional reading: Symptoms of Orthorexia Nervosa (Bukisa.com), Signs and Symptoms of Orthorexia Nervosa (International Eating Disorders Institute)

Orthorexia nervosa affects everyone--women, men, adolescents, and everyone in between.  Some people are more susceptible to developing this disorder.  At risk groups include teenagers, young adults, people with a previous or current eating disorder, people on strict vegetarian or raw food diets, and perferctionists.

This does not mean only these at risk groups are affected by it.  Anyone can be affected by it, regardless of their race, gender, and predisposition.

Like all eating disorders, orthorexia nervosa is caused by one determining factor: boundary invasion.

This can include boundary invasion in the physical sense, such as rape or child molestation, or boundary invasion in the mental sense. People with controlling parents may use orthorexia as a way to find something they can control. Others may use to cope with feelings caused by feelings of inadequacy or depression. The reasons behind developing this mental illness are numerous, but it all boils down to boundary invasion.