ABC NEWS ran a feature on orthorexia recently, focusing on raw foodism, or the practice of eating only foods that are uncooked. Raw foodists are already attuned to health issues: That's why they're seeking the healthiest diet they can find in the first place. When the desire for a healthy diet narrows too far, the result is orthorexia. But what isn't clear (and what the ABC report may have missed) is that we don't know which causes which. Do people like raw foodists become people with orthorexia, or do those susceptible to orthorexia gravitate to raw foodism?
Orthorexia is the "captain" of the good food versus bad food debate. A person struggling with orthorexia isn't that concerned with being thin. The question is whether the person is eating the "right" foods or not. When the "right" foods are set in stone, resulting in a dramatically more restrictive lifestyle with tremendous pressure to eat in very narrow ways, it's an instance of disordered eating.
"Well," you might say, "if it's healthy food, why is it a problem?" Of course, there's no problem at all when there are limits. Consider compulsive hand-washing. Washing hands routinely is one of the best practices for maintaining health that we know. But what if a person can't leave the house for fear of dirtying the hands? That isn't a healthy lifestyle. The same is true for any obsessive-compulsive behavior, including maintaining a diet that is never quite "healthy" enough to be satisfying. Overdoing a healthy practice can compromise other healthy practices in your life, reducing your overall health.
