Worrying about the food we eat has become a very positive trend since we not only help society in general live longer and better, but we also educate future generations so that leading a healthy lifestyle is born naturally.
However, there is a disorder related to healthy eating that is far from convenient. It’s about orthorexia. Orthorexia or orthorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that is based on the pathological obsession with eating food considered healthy; that is, when eating healthy becomes an obsession .
The term was coined in 1997 by the American doctor Steven Bratman who warns that this obfuscation can lead to a lack of vitamins, malnutrition and, in extreme cases, death from starvation. It affects 28% of the population in developed countries .
This obsessive-compulsive disorder leads orthorexics to completely eliminate from their diet certain foods that contain any trace of artificial colors or preservatives but also any type of fats : they avoid red meat, dairy, eggs or sugars. They structure and plan each meal in their diet with mathematical precision, weighing each and every food and carefully analyzing its components.
Comparing orthorexia with other eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia, in the latter, subjects worry about the amount of food they consume (either in excess or in its absence) and orthorexics are obsessed with the quality of the food. herself. Any behavior that results in obsessive-compulsive disorder should be treated by an expert. In this case, it is even more complicated, since the line that divides the passion for a healthy life and the obsession is excessively fine .
