Could your obsession with healthy eating be orthorexia?

Before you invest in another juice cleanse, you may want to think about why you’re cleansing in the first place.

“I knew I had a problem, but I didn’t have a name for it,” blogger Jordan Younger recently admitted to Refinery29. “Mine was an obsession with healthy, pure, clean foods from the earth, and a fear of anything that might potentially cause my body harm.”

Younger thought she was living a healthy vegan lifestyle, but as her hair started to fall out and her face thinned she realized something was up. Once she stopped getting her period, she decided to seek out help.

“After a major conversation with one of my close friends about her eating disorder, I finally realized that was what I was dealing with, too,” she said.

Younger had been battling what is now called orthorexia. A relatively new disorder, the name was penned by Steven Bratman, MD, MPH who recognized a parallel between people suffering from anorexia (an obsession with not eating) and patients obsessed with dieting and eating only very specific foods.

Orthorexia comes from the Greek words ortho, “correct” and orexis, “appetite” to form “correct appetite.” What makes this problematic is when the fixation reaches the point of causing bodily harm.

“For people with orthorexia, eating healthily has become an extreme, obsessive, psychologically limiting and sometimes physically dangerous disorder, related to but quite distinct from anorexia,” Bratman explains on his website dedicated to the disorder. The unique danger of orthorexia, Bratman explains, is that “it has an aspirational, idealistic, spiritual component which allows it to become deeply rooted in a person’s identity.” Because the focus is on pure, healthy ingredients, people feel like they are making a lifestyle choice rather than dieting.

Younger agrees claiming, “I was proud to share my lifestyle, and found there was a huge hunger for knowledge about vegan food in the online community. With my family across the country and my growing The Blonde Vegan brand, I was able to keep my charade up for much longer than I should have.”

Like many orthorexia sufferers, Younger told herself that being vegan helped ease her pain from eating other foods. “Eating only plant-based foods eased the extreme bloating and discomfort I was used to, and suddenly I felt lightness in my stomach,” she says. “Veganism gave me a feeling of physical wellness and complete control.” Later, as she realized being vegan did not in fact change the difficulties she had with digestion but rather it was the feeling of control that was most appealing.

Though Bratman claims he does not condemn being vegetarian or vegan, The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) warns, “orthorexics may eliminate entire groups of food — such as dairy or grains — from their diets, later eliminating another group of food, and another, all in the quest for a "perfect” clean, healthy diet.” Though being vegan or vegetarian does not necessarily peg a person as orthorexic, it could serve as a warning sign that there is a bigger issue at play.

“People with anorexia possess a distorted body image in which they see themselves as fat regardless of how thin they really are, whereas those with orthorexia constantly struggle against feelings of being unclean or polluted by what they have eaten, no matter how carefully they monitor their diet,” Bratman distinguishes.

The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) in the U.S. suggests asking these questions if you think you or someone you know may be suffering from orthorexia:

1. Do you wish that occasionally you could just eat and not worry about food quality?

2. Do you ever wish you could spend less time on food and more time living and loving?

3. Does it seem beyond your ability to eat a meal prepared with love by someone else – one single meal – and not try to control what is served?

4. Are you constantly looking for ways foods are unhealthy for you?

5. Do love, joy, play and creativity take a back seat to following the perfect diet?

6. Do you feel guilt or self-loathing when you stray from your diet?

7. Do you feel in control when you stick to the “correct” diet?

8. Have you put yourself on a nutritional pedestal and wonder how others can possibly eat the foods they eat?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above it is possible that you may be dealing with orthorexia.

For Younger, curbing her obsession involved working with a nutritionist and therapist. She also renamed her blog The Balanced Blonde focusing finding a balance.

“I try to listen to my body, be kind to myself, and forgive,” she says. “If I feel like veggies, I have them. If I feel like driving 10 miles for the best cupcake in town, then you bet I’m going to do that.”