Eating Disorders: Orthorexia

A young woman shares her struggle with Orthorexia, when trying to eat “perfect” meals leads to giving up eating at all. An ABC News Production.

Although not formally recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, awareness about orthorexia is on the rise. The term ‘orthorexia’ was coined in 1998 and means an obsession with proper or ‘healthful’ eating. Although being aware of and concerned with the nutritional quality of the food you eat isn’t a problem in and of itself, people with orthorexia become so fixated on so-called ‘healthy eating’ that they actually damage their own well-being.

While better-known eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia tend to focus on food quantity, orthorexia is all about quality and selecting foods that are “pure” and “clean.” (Orthorexia isn’t officially recognized as a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, but Quatromoni thinks it will eventually be listed as a distinct diagnosis.) Orthorexia can be difficult to spot because it often begins quite innocently, with healthy choices like cutting out red meat. But the list of off-limits food just keeps growing.

Orthorexia, although not yet recognized as a disease, is the obsessive fixation on healthy food and healthy eating. People with orthorexia are often on a stringent diet and may have anxiety about how much they eat, how certain foods are prepared, and where those foods came from. This behavior has hints of obsessive-compulsive disorder and anorexia nervosa.