The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that orthorexia currently affects the28 percent of the population of western countries, mainly to adolescents and women. And as explained by the nutritionist and naturopath of the Medical Institute of Obesity (IMEO), Rubén Bravo, in statements to Europa Press, its prevalence “could increase” in the coming years, since today’s society “tends to extremes “and people either take care of themselves in excess or they do not take care of themselves at all” and they tend to self-destruct with food as occurs with obesity. “
Orthorexia can begin by severely limiting your diet, avoiding the intake of red meat, eggs, sugars, dairy products, and fats, and may become worse.lead to “social isolation”, since the individual is overwhelmed if, for example, he has to attend a meal with friends or a business meal. “These people believe they are superior to those who do not follow this way of life”, clarifies Bravo, and they tend to present “a false self-esteem” based on this idea of superiority and on the full conviction that their life is “better” than that of the rest.
Those who suffer orthorexia are people who are “more concerned with the quality of food than the pleasure of eating.” Therefore, they spend a large part of their time (3 or more hours a day) organizing the diet and planning it well in advance, traveling long distances to get special or purely organic foods, weighing them, analyzing their components and abandoning their activities daily to carry out yourpathological way of life. In the psychological field, Bravo explains that they usually present “high dopamine levels and low serotonin levels, which causes them to have an excess of euphoria combined with high levels of anxiety. “And at a physiological level it can happen both that they present an excess as well as that they suffer from a vitamin deficiency.
