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Many of us have orthorexia!


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http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/16/orthorexia-mental-health-eating-disorder

 

This right here is a absolute joke, I feel like I'm living in la la land world.

"Orthorexics commonly have rigid rules around eating. Refusing to touch sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods is just the start of their diet restrictions. Any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives are also out."

 

It's a fact that many of those are bad for us yet we have a problem if we don't want to eat them. I guess i should start getting drunk on the weekends with my buds maybe pop some vicoden so i can be normal. I guess the Establishment doesn't want healthy people because it's interferes with there medical profits.

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Actually, I kinda agree. I don't know if it's actually a diagnosable disorder, but I'd say that obsession over total purity is a problem.

 

Sure, it's a good thing to think about what you eat. It's good to make sure that you eat a range of fruit, veg, grains, beans, etc. It's great to ensure that your diet is not based on nutrient-devoid items like white bread and cakes. It's good to eat organic foods when you can.

 

However, if you are doing those things--if your diet is made mostly of healthful whole foods, having something 'bad' now and then, like a cookie or a slice of cake, is not going to kill you. If one is at a point where one can't eat a cookie ever because absolutely everything must be 'good', I'd agree that's most likely a problem.

 

I think that being vegan would be excluded, assuming it's for ethical reasons. That's not about making sure that everything you put in your body is 'pure', as evidenced by the fact that veganism isn't just about food.

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It's seems people are obsessed with labeling EVERYTHING (remember the utterly bogus "Restless Leg Syndrome"?) these days. Now even giving a damn about what you eat may get you diagnosed with an actual disorder

 

Sure, being too anal about your diet isn't a good thing, but such labeling opens the door for a lot more BS than we already have. Unhealthy eating is an incomparably bigger issue than being too obsessed with dietary "purity".

 

Also, what I noticed is that a lot of folks are prone to jumping to extremes. No idea whether it's a new trend (or something characteristic of only the "western culture"), but it sure seems to be fairly widespread. One day you're eating pizza, ice cream and cheeseburgers, the next day it's all wheat grass, quinoa and unicorn tears. That kind of mind-set can't be healthy, can it?

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One day you're eating pizza, ice cream and cheeseburgers, the next day it's all wheat grass, quinoa and unicorn tears

 

 

"Orthorexics commonly have rigid rules around eating. Refusing to touch sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods is just the start of their diet restrictions. Any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives are also out."
lol, and what are called those that eat those items and what is the name of their disease ? The first four ones aren't even foods and the six last ones are common allergens; as for pesticides and insecticides, its surely not food and who the hell would really want on purpose to eat something that has been sprayed with rat poison?

We live in a mad mad world governed by lunatics who think killing animals is normal and that not killing animals is being radical and an extremist.

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Also, what I noticed is that a lot of folks are prone to jumping to extremes. No idea whether it's a new trend (or something characteristic of only the "western culture"), but it sure seems to be fairly widespread. One day you're eating pizza, ice cream and cheeseburgers, the next day it's all wheat grass, quinoa and unicorn tears. That kind of mind-set can't be healthy, can it?

 

Hey xzebrasx, do you know a good online source for unicorn tears?

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Actually, I kinda agree. I don't know if it's actually a diagnosable disorder, but I'd say that obsession over total purity is a problem.

 

Sure, it's a good thing to think about what you eat. It's good to make sure that you eat a range of fruit, veg, grains, beans, etc. It's great to ensure that your diet is not based on nutrient-devoid items like white bread and cakes. It's good to eat organic foods when you can.

 

However, if you are doing those things--if your diet is made mostly of healthful whole foods, having something 'bad' now and then, like a cookie or a slice of cake, is not going to kill you. If one is at a point where one can't eat a cookie ever because absolutely everything must be 'good', I'd agree that's most likely a problem.

 

I think that being vegan would be excluded, assuming it's for ethical reasons. That's not about making sure that everything you put in your body is 'pure', as evidenced by the fact that veganism isn't just about food.

 

I see where your coming from, but whats wrong with wanting are body to be as pure as possibile? I think eatting healthy can be a obsession for some people and it makes them more unhealthy, but you can say the same thing for anything people do. Work is needed to live but you can be obsessed and work 20 hours a day. We know that isn't healthy, but people just call them ambitious. I never touched a drug or alcohol in my life and it was really easy becasue i never tried them. I never obessed about not having them, just the opposite, since i never did them or put thought into it i could think about other stuff

 

I hear the arugement well eatting that cake or that white flower or that alcolhol isn't going to kill me. Well smoking a cigerett every month or doing meth once a month isn't going to actually kill you, but if has no busisness being in the body so its' best to have none if it. Plus doing bad things once in a while leads to more and more. doing processed foods here and there won't kill you, but living on them like people do sure well.

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They keep coming up with more and more medical terms and conditions so everyone has something. Then they have a drug for whatever condition. What ever happen to the good ole days where people just lived and excepted there short comming and worked with what they have instead of walking around drugged out of there minds to cover up symtoms

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Hey xzebrasx, do you know a good online source for unicorn tears?

 

Forget it, xzebrasx, I just realized that unicorn tears aren't vegan.

 

 

Yeah, man - those bastards've found a way to exploit even those who don't even exist.

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I think Orthorexia is only considered a problem when the person "afflicted" with it becomes malnourished or severely underweight due to such rigid eating habits.

 

 

Yeah i feel like if they only used the term in those cases it would be a fair description but there painting it with a thick brush calling anyone that competely avoids all those things as orthorexic when you can eat perfect and never obsess about food.

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(remember the utterly bogus "Restless Leg Syndrome"?)

Hey now, RLS isn't bogus! I actually suffer from it--it's real and it sucks! My grandmother, mother, and brother all have/had it as well. We used to call it 'jumpy leg' until we learned that the was a name for it. Sure, it's not life threatening or anything, but it's a real thing and it is really unpleasant.

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ok, ok. orthorexia is real. and is a real problem for people. and that is the difference between what everyone here is talking about and the real deal. yes, the description is vague and thats unfortunate. but orthorexia isnt just wanting purity or even being extreme about eating healthy foods. its and OBSESSION, much like OCD, etc. the problem comes in when it iterferes with your daily life. it cripples you from doing much else. you literally FEAR foods. i understand, believe me, that there is some scary stuff in some "food" nowadays, but its a real fear, as in petrified of eating a saltine cracker. someone wanna say that this wouldnt be a serious issue if it was your life? of course it would. its a mental disorder like anorexia, like o.c.d, like hypocondria, like people that are scared to death of heights. unfortunately there are varying degrees of everything and people think that wanting to eat as healthy as possible is orthorexia, and it is not. wanting to eat as healthy as you can is awesome. fhaving panic attacks if you eat a conventionally grown apple is not. get it?

 

if i didnt know about it firsthand, the article would piss me off too. but having seen it, i can tell you, it is a serious problem for some.

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She's right: it is real but the description in the article sucks. I've heard about health freaks that were eating only foods with high concentration of vitamins, so one woman arrived to the doctor with her palm hands and skin all orange because she was eating way too many carrots, a guy got an overdose of vitamin D or E and was hospitalized for months and then it took 2 years for his body to fully detox. Those are the consequences on physique but the psychologic issue is 24/7. I myself at some point started to be freaked out by what's in food but it only grew in my mind and never became real. I may be wrong but I think those that have orthorexia give supernatural powers to food (like most nutritionists, dieteticians and scientists do) about the vitamins, antioxydants, omega-3 and all other micronutrients found in each food and their respective effect and healing/protective powers against cancers and other diseases...

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Sure it's real, but the article is painting it with such a large brush, and i'm allso seen a TV show about it. Basically what the message was was eat heathy food but eat other stuff too because it's not bad for you and won't kill you.
Personnally I dont really like when they try to confort people like this; truth is that IT IS BAD for us and not necessary at all -- if it was necessary to eat junk even if it bad, then there would be no reason to not avoid it, it would be a necessary evil, but its not. So in articles, they encourage us to become vegetarian or even to go vegan, but they always say: go one step at a time. But I believe it often fails this way; people are making one exception to the rule, and one more, etc and then they fall off the wagon and go back to their omni diet. If you do it overnight you cannot go back; if you go back you didn't make the change. They tell us to eat healthy but then they write articles like the one in this post, saying its a disease to eat too much healthy and that one must include some junk food. They do this perhaps because they know that most people are losers unable to make radical changes so they say: its ok to change just a bit, but keep some of your bad habits.
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ok, ok. orthorexia is real. and is a real problem for people. and that is the difference between what everyone here is talking about and the real deal. yes, the description is vague and thats unfortunate. but orthorexia isnt just wanting purity or even being extreme about eating healthy foods. its and OBSESSION, much like OCD, etc. the problem comes in when it iterferes with your daily life. it cripples you from doing much else. you literally FEAR foods. i understand, believe me, that there is some scary stuff in some "food" nowadays, but its a real fear, as in petrified of eating a saltine cracker. someone wanna say that this wouldnt be a serious issue if it was your life? of course it would. its a mental disorder like anorexia, like o.c.d, like hypocondria, like people that are scared to death of heights. unfortunately there are varying degrees of everything and people think that wanting to eat as healthy as possible is orthorexia, and it is not. wanting to eat as healthy as you can is awesome. fhaving panic attacks if you eat a conventionally grown apple is not. get it?

 

if i didnt know about it firsthand, the article would piss me off too. but having seen it, i can tell you, it is a serious problem for some.

Thanks for that explanation. It's like how having a fear of heights is sensible and all of us have some level of it, to prevent us from falling to our deaths. But if the fear becomes unreasonable for the risk and starts to interfere with a person's life, it becomes a diagnosable problem.

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Yep i agree. Bad things are best never done. Getting into a car wreck might not kill you but it's easiler to avoid it. Dirving 100 on the freeway won't make you crash all the time, but your chances are much higher

Driving or riding in a car, at any speed, can result in a car wreck. Yet people get in cars all the time--would you say it's best for everyone to abandon cars completely because being in one increases the risk of a car wreck? My risk of being run over is much higher if I go near a road. Maybe I should never go near one. My chances of another person harming me is higher if I leave my house, so maybe I should stop doing that.

 

There's risk in the world. It's good to be aware of that and not take too many, but we can't avoid them all, so we always have to determine which risks are 'worth it' and which aren't. I used to mountain bike and now I do roller derby, which increase my risk of injury. But I do it anyway. Maybe this is a 'bad thing' that never should be done because it carries a risk of harm, but I don't care. It gives me enjoyment and I have weighed that this outweighs the risk for me, personally.

 

Eating cake and cookies now and then isn't going to break my leg or cause me to drop dead tomorrow. It's probably going to have negligible effect on my health overall. So why worry about it so much? Just like getting in a car, crossing the street, or playing roller derby, there might be some small risk attached to it, but it's not enough to make me consider it to be something so horrible it can never be done.

 

I can understand people who say that they won't allow themselves one cookie because they know themselves and they know that if they allow themselves one, they won't be able to stop and their entire diet will soon decline. I can't understand people who think that the actual act of eating a single cookie is harmful enough in and of itself to be worried about.

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I can understand people who say that they won't allow themselves one cookie because they know themselves and they know that if they allow themselves one, they won't be able to stop and their entire diet will soon decline. I can't understand people who think that the actual act of eating a single cookie is harmful enough in and of itself to be worried about.

Perhaps not

just one but lets say one per week, which isn't so many... but that's 52 per year so after 30 years that's over 1,500 cookies. Of course people that eat cookies often eat chips also, etc... Nowadays there young folks of 20 years of age getting cancer ? how come so young? there's girls that got skin cancer after just a few hours in the tanning salon. Or maybe the ultra-violet rays were not the only reason, but one cookie was ''the straw that broke the camel'' ( ahah, not so sure if this makes sense, but its an automatic translation from an expression used in French)...you're gonna say I'm being paranoid, but maybe not: add one cookie to all the scum in the air, and all the other risk factors you mentioned in your post... so its better to remove all the risks you can remove, like all the risks related to diet and lifestyle, so that there is only 50% left, things you cannot really change... Not so long ago, it was pretty rare to get a cancer before the age of 40 or something. But now, there,s even KIDS that have diabetes and even are born with diabetes, or 9 years old children with serious brain tumors... at this young age they didn't have the time to eat 1,500 cookies yet, so how come? you will say maybe because of their genetics... maybe because their parents ate only one cookie per week, only 2,000 cookies in their lifetime...

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