Orthorexia: When Clean Eating Becomes a Problem
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Orthexia: When “Clean Eating” Becomes a Problem | News Hub | Consumer Health News & Information | IU HealthOrthexia: When “Clean Eating” Becomes a Problem | News Hub | Consumer Health News & Information | IU Health
These days, many people are making the decision to improve their eating habits by choosing more “whole” foods like produce, and avoiding processed foods. But for some, this type of “clean eating” can be taken to an unhealthy extreme. The result is an eating disorder commonly known as “orthexia,” which involves becoming fixated on and obsessed with the quality and purity of food.
“We’re seeing more and more of this eating disorder,” says Dr. Anne Lewis, a psychologist at the IU Health Charis Center for Eating Disorders. “It’s a growing trend.”
Signs You Have an Issue
Orthexia, also known as restrictive eating, is defined as consistently limiting and controlling your food choices to the point where it starts to impair your ability to function and impacts other parts of your life, including your career and relationships.
Finding suitable food choices can also become increasingly difficult because not only does the food needs to be organic, for instance for some people, but it also has to be grown or farmed a certain way, too. “People often find that they’re unable to go out and spend time with family and friends because their food choices are much less readily available,” says Dr. Lewis. And since non-processed foods often have a much heftier price tag, some people have trouble paying their bills.
Who’s at Risk?
As with other kinds of eating disorders, women are more likely than men to develop orthexia, and certain personality types are also more susceptible, says Dr. Lewis. “The kinds of people that are more likely to develop eating disorders tend to be highly intelligent, highly perfectionistic and very self-motivated,” she says. They also tend to be highly sensitive to information they see or read about food. “The more information they read, the more their diets get so restrictive that they take control of their lives,” adds Dr. Lewis. One difference compared with other eating disorders, however, is that orthexia tends to strike at later ages. Dr. Lewis says in their offices, most of the people they see are college-age or older.
How Is Orthexia Treated?
The goal of treatment—mainly individual and group therapy sessions—is to help someone get comfortable with eating less restrictively, says Dr. Lewis. “For instance, one challenge may be to eat an apple that isn’t organic.” Dr. Lewis says she encourages people with orthexia to try to eliminate the words ‘health’ and ‘unhealthy’ from their vocabularies. “We want them to understand that we should be enjoying the foods that we are consuming. And if that means making the decision to have cotton candy instead of a piece of fruit once in a while, that’s okay,” she adds.
If someone seeks professional help when they’re first noticing the damaging effects that “clean eating” is having on their life, treatment doesn’t have to last long—“several months to maybe a year, which is a relatively short amount of time in our field,” says Dr. Lewis. More serious cases may require inpatient care in a residential facility, says Dr. Lewis, “especially if the restrictive eating pattern results in a significant amount of weight loss.”
If you’re concerned that someone close to you may have orthexia, Dr. Lewis says the best thing you can do is offer to help. “Tell them that you’re concerned,” she says, “and that you’re there to help them figure it out.”
Posted: 04/28/2016