Orthorexie Healthy eating as an eating disorder

Orthorexia: Healthy eating becomes „substitute religion“

25/08/2014

Too many calories, too much fat, not enough vitamins: More and more people are worrying about their food. However, when the craving for the most healthy diet becomes obsessive, experts talk about the eating disorder "orthorexia".

When healthy food becomes obsession
Healthy food is the trend: sugar is often taboo, sometimes milk, conventional foods are dispensed with. More and more people pay attention to what they eat. But some do it so intensely that it becomes downright pathological. Then sufferers can become lonely, develop deficiency symptoms and lose weight. Some psychologists then speak of orthorexia and see parallels with anorexia, such as „Mirror online“ in a recent post writes. Although the eating disorder Orthorexia nervosa is not recognized in conventional medicine, the German Society of Endocrinology recently warned against so-called orthorexia in humans „obsessed with healthy food“ are.

Concerned suffer from lonely and lonely
As „Mirror online“ Writes down, sufferers from, since there are hardly any food that they want to eat and suffer as a result of deficiency symptoms. In addition, they were lonely, because invitations to eat with friends would be rejected, so as not to have to deviate from the nutrition plan. On the other hand, they tried others too „proselytize“, which therefore withdraw. „Then healthy food has taken morbid proportions“, said the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Ulrich Voderholzer, medical director of the Schön Klinik Roseneck in Prien am Chiemsee. „The risk of depression is significantly increased because of the broken relationship network“, the expert explained according to the report.

Guilt and fear
It also explains that people with orthorexia also show compulsive traits, where orthorexia is not a real obsessive-compulsive disorder. So sufferers get really guilty feelings and are afraid to harm themselves, if they have eaten something that they think is not quite healthy. The psychologist Friederike Barthels from the Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Dusseldorf explained that "Orthorexia is linked to weight and physical well-being in some of the people affected, and most of them are women." In addition to the fear of becoming ill through an unhealthy diet, one of the reasons for those affected is to be slim. „Therefore, orthorexia seems to be a variant of anorexia, at least in some patients“, so Barthels.

Variant of an eating disorder
However, the diagnosis is controversial, orthorexia is not recognized as a disease. Voderholzer sees her as a precursor or variant of an eating disorder, for which study results of Barthels speak. According to an online study conducted by Barthels with colleagues, around one to two percent of the population is said to suffer from orthorexia. Among the questions asked were fears of unhealthy foods or strange ideas of what unhealthy foods can do to the body. „An example of this is the fear of a respondent that gluten could stick the body from the inside“, so Barthels.

„Healthy food becomes a substitute religion“
According to the Dusseldorf psychologist, vegans who do not use animal products for philosophical and moral reasons have no long-term risk of orthorexia. Those who have chosen this diet to reduce their risk of disease, on the other hand. In particular, vegans are at risk who want to be as lean as possible with this diet. There is also an increased risk for those people who are dieting, following very strict, specific rules. Vorderholzer says: „Orthorexia is often the result of a search for orientation in a complex society. Healthy eating becomes a substitute religion, stabilizing self-esteem.“

Affected do not want to change their behavior
Many sufferers are convinced of their behavior and do not want to change it. „And that, although we have found in a study that even a moderate Orthorexie causes suffering, a reduced life satisfaction, lower personal well-being“, so Barthels. Those who "are already deficient because of a very one-sided diet" are more likely to be ready for therapy. For them "therapists and psychologists who are familiar with nutrition and eating disorders are a suitable point of contact".

Physical complaints from malnutrition
For physical health problems caused by improper diet should also be consulted a doctor. For example, sufferers could be underweight. In addition, malnutrition on a physical level is often manifested by symptoms such as low blood pressure, slowed pulse, loss of appetite, diarrhea or nausea. In addition, the effects of malnutrition are generally recognizable by physical weakness, listlessness and fatigue. (Ad)

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