Orthorexia: 10 Signs To Identify The Obsession With Healthy Food
Are you obsessed with your diet? Do you know what orthorexia consists of? Discover what it is and how to deal with this cognitive distortion.
The origin of the word orthorexia, comes from Greek “orthos” which means “correct” and “orexis” what does it mean “appetite”. Nowadays, with the increase in concern for healthy living, there has been greater interest in healthy eating. The orthorexia , A term created by the American doctor Steve Bratman, it refers to an obsessive-compulsive condition characterized by excessive consumption of foods considered healthy, with the consequent performance of rituals to a restrictive diet and compensatory social isolation.
In other words, it is the obsession with eating healthy, until it reaches a significant pathological level. When is obsession taken to the extreme, there comes a point where everything revolves around food and severe restrictions with the complications that this entails, including severe social isolation, due to the struggle for a perfect nutritional condition, since people who suffer from it They feel obliged to explain to those around them their concern for health and that they do not eat just any type of food.
When they cannot perform the rituals to be able to eat healthy, a feeling of concern and guilt is manifested in them for the transgression or for not complying with it. An example of a ritual could be the way food is prepared or using only certain utensils for cooking.
Symptoms of orthorexia
Dedicate more than 3 hours a day to thinking about a healthy diet.
Worry more about the quality of food than the pleasure of consuming it.
Decrease in quality of life, as the “quality” of food increases.
Feelings of guilt, when you do not comply with dietary convictions.
Excessive planning of what you will eat the next day.
Social isolation caused by the type of diet.
Characteristics of orthodexy
1. Obsession with diet
The dominant dynamics in orthorexia It is the desire to prevent or eliminate physical symptoms (real or imagined) or to be pure and natural, even at the cost of losing the pleasure of eating. It begins with the desire to improve health, treat an illness or lose weight, but eventually diet comes to the fore, requiring great self-control.
People who suffer from it obsessively avoid certain foods, without making adequate substitutions, which can lead to nutritional deficiencies such as meat, carbohydrates, dairy and/or foods that contain excess salt and sugar, fats, dyes, preservatives, or foods grown with pesticides or herbicides.
3. Nutrition control becomes a priority
The desire to see yourself with a perfect body coincides with other eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, where feeding control It becomes a priority, so that the person can feel safe and in control of each situation.
4. Exaggerated need for self-care
The most vulnerable to suffer orthorexia They are women, adolescents and those who practice sports such as athletics, bodybuilding or those people who overvalue the perfect body. They are very strict, orderly, meticulous people, demanding of themselves and others and with an exaggerated need for self-care and protection.
5. They are overinformed about food processes
They spend a lot of their free time learning about food, what foods are healthy and what are not, what ways of cooking are the best, etc. In this way, the obsession with healthy food It ends up taking up a lot of your daily time. The result is that they dedicate a large part of the day to eating and little to other recreational activities.
6. Attitude regulated by food
In the same way that those who need to wash their hands end up washing them more and more frequently, people who focus on eating healthy become more and more rigid and restrict their diet more, reaching points such as not being able to eat with friends. or go on a trip because they cannot eat as they think they should. That is why someone obsessed or obsessed with eating It can cause harm both in your personal and professional sphere.
7. Superiority
The Orthorexia generates “false self-esteem.” The person feels good because he thinks he is doing the right thing and tries to rigidly indoctrinate and instill his values to others. Thus, the person thinks that he is better than the rest of society because he eats well and others do poorly, going so far as to criticize and belittle the habits of others.
The need to eat healthy also ends up reaching other healthy practices such as physical exercise. And in the same way it is done obsessively. Many times the obsession with healthy food It entails an obsession with sports as well as an obsession with being at a healthy weight (which can lead to anorexia). In fact, many times these two disorders go hand in hand. There are people who have suffered from anorexia and when they overcome it they end up falling into Orthorexia while there are people with Orthorexia who end up falling into Anorexia.
9. Feelings of guilt
If at any time they skip their diet, eat something that is unhealthy or spend a sedentary day, a great feeling of guilt and discomfort occurs, so they can resort to compensation (if I haven’t done anything today, tomorrow I will do twice as much). and thus increase the risks of doing unhealthy behaviors. Although it may seem paradoxical, these people end up carrying out behaviors that are harmful to health, such as not eating all the nutrients that the body requires every day, doing more sports than indicated, or eating products they call “pure” such as drinking non-potable water because it is not treated. chemically, so they put their health at risk.
10. Social isolation
The obsession with healthy food causes the topics of conversation about this to be recurrent, rigidity and dichotomous thinking (black or white) make the person become more intransigent with others, the false feeling of superiority has the same effect and all of this combined with the difficulty going out to dinner or eating out causes the person to interact less and less with the environment and end up isolating themselves from others.
At first, the most rigid, strict, self-demanding people with obsessive traits can be cannon fodder for this disorder. However, the current fashion for being healthy extends to more sectors and personality profiles, with possible cases being impressionable, insecure people with low self-esteem as well as profiles of progressive, modern and assertive people. If you feel identified with these symptoms, you may be a victim of this disorder. Do not hesitate and consult a psychologist, since the treatment is usually similar to that of other Eating Disorders. Maybe you think you are taking care of yourself by eating this way but you could be doing yourself a lot of harm.
Face the orthorexia or the obsession with healthy food It can be quite a challenge for the person in question. In this way, combating this obsession and its symptoms is a daily job. In order to leave orthorexia nervosa behind, we must take into account the following tips.
Set limits
To stop being obsessed with food We must begin to establish certain limits on our attitude. Therefore, it is important to set a limit on the amount of time we dedicate to these habits in our daily lives. Although correcting orthorexia is complicated at first, the reality is that you will have to work on this habit that you have picked up over time.
Start slow
The obsession with healthy food Very often it involves very restrictive eating patterns, therefore you should work on breaking these habits that you do routinely. It is for this reason that it is essential to take small steps to leave this disorder and its meaning behind.
Consult with a dietitian
A dietitian can help us improve our eating habits with a healthy plan that allows us to leave behind this obsession with eating healthy. Through regular appointments with this professional and monitoring progress, it can be an effective weapon against orthorexia
Start by recognizing your bad habits
To start having a good relationship with food It is essential to try to predict when these types of attitudes occur. Recognizing when they happen to you will be one of the first ways to avoid orthorexia nervosa. Once you can identify them, you will have the key to avoiding this type of attitude.
Relieve your stress
In many cases a obsessed woman or man obsessed with food It usually goes hand in hand with excess stress. In this way, in order to combat orthorexia and the obsession related to it, it will be essential to try to alleviate what generates this stress or nervousness. One of the most effective ways is to try to stop negative thoughts related to this type of attitude.
There are many ways to relieve orthorexia nervosa Despite this, in certain cases this condition must be treated by a professional psychologist to be able to confront this obsession with healthy food. A good relationship with food will be the key to mental and physical well-being.
