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Eating disorder is not something new in medical world, but you are probably not familiar with orthorexia nervosa. This is a relatively new term to describe the eating disorder where someone becomes too obsessed with healthy foods. Even, the obsession comes in the form of fixation toward the healthy or righteous eating. Some medical experts categorize this disorder to mental disorder. A person who suffers from this disorder is called orthorexic.
The term orthorexia nervosa was originally from Greeks orthos and orexia. Orthos means correct or right, while the meaning of orexia is appetite. So, the obsession is always about the healthy foods. Unfortunately, this disorder is relatively difficult to diagnose than anorexia and bulimia. In medical world, this term hasn’t been widely recognized too. The worst effect of extreme obsession to healthy foods is the severe malnutrition, heart problems and even death. Unlike bulimia or anorexia, orthorexia is mostly happened to men.
Food Choices
The orthorexic will have a problem with self esteem when he failed to run the healthy diet and provide the adequate nourishment for their weight loss program. Anyway, orthorexia nervosa is not only about diet program, but also the extreme obsession to live a healthy life by easting only the healthy foods. When it comes to talk about food choices, orthorexics tend to avoid processed foods. In their mind, the processed foods are full of artificial substances and preservatives. These dangerous foods will harm their health, thus they do not want to take such foods. In some cases, orthorexics also “reject” animal products.
So, the healthiest foods for them are such as fresh fruits as well as fresh vegetables. While the diet experts claimed these foods are not enough to supply the nutrition for human body, the orthorexics still believe in their own opinion and definition of healthy foods. If you have a friend or family with such symptoms, you can 99% sure that he is an orthorexic. Do not expect him to follow your advices to consume other foods besides fruits and vegetables and whatever he assumes as healthy foods, since he will never listen to you.
More than Just an Obsession
People who suffer from orthorexia nervosa commonly have the unhealthily thin body. This is not a strange thing, since they are malnourished. When the healthy diet concepts out there require the dieters to include some important nutrients such as protein, iron and vitamins, the orthorexics assume those nutrients as the harmful things for their health. They even spend their time by thinking about the way the foods are prepared, processed and served. For you, this thing is probably very exaggerating and unimportant, but that’s the fact.
Possible Treatments
Orthorexia remains the question about some possible solutions to treat this eating and mental disorder. In general, there are some possible treatment which worth a try. The proper nutrition education becomes the first possible alternative. Surely, this will be the hardest part of all. The next treatment is through counseling. This step has been widely recommended to increase the orthorexics’ self-esteem, thus they have more time and opportunity to develop their social relationships. In conclusion, orthorexia nervosa is a dangerous condition which requires more comprehensive treatment than the other eating disorders.
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