I am thankful that much of the stigma surrounding eating disorders and the people who suffer from them is being uprooted and replaced with more wide-spread support available. However, there is an eating disorder that is often difficult to get help for- in large part because many people don’t even know it exists, and those who do often doubt its validity.
I think it’s time that we have an honest conversation about what orthorexia is, what the warning signs are, and why it often is both invalidated and encouraged in our culture.
I myself have learned the hard way that, even with the best of intentions, “clean eating” can often turn into an eating disorder.
According to the National Eating Disorders Association- “Orthorexia Nervosa is defined as a ‘fixation on righteous eating.’ There’s a preoccupation with the quality and purity of the food you are consuming; an obsession with being “healthy.” In other words, orthorexia is when you are so obsessed with food being clean, raw, fresh, organic, GMO-free, etc., that it interferes with your quality of life and ability to engage in social eating events. Orthorexia is when wanting to be so pure and righteous leads to important nutrients being excluded and your mental and physical wellbeing being negatively impacted.”
I believe that, as with many other aspects of life, the souring point begins in our own minds- when eating stops being about nourishing ourselves inside and out, and instead becomes a way to either reward or punish ourselves.
Even long before I developed orthorexia, I was no stranger to disordered eating. The first time I made myself throw up my food in hopes of losing weight was on my eighth birthday. At twenty, when I began to grow increasingly passionate about healthy eating, I was ecstatic because I believed I was finally free from my eating disorders. I felt completely at peace with my body and food for the first time in my life. Sadly, it didn’t last. After about a year, I felt crushed when so many of my underlying issues resurfaced after a series of painful and triggering experiences over the course of a week.
It took a long time for me to realize that I had spiraled back into disordered eating- because this time, it looked different. It didn’t look like not eating for three days at a time or throwing up my food- it looked like being a militant “health nut.” In my own experience, recovering from my eating disorders involves some additional complications- I was also recovering from endometriosis and PCOS, and there were certain foods that would physically make me ill and result in dire hormonal consequences from consuming them. I also had intolerances and even some full-blown allergies to foods I constantly craved. I envied the ED recovery bloggers I saw who started to eat all of their favorite foods again as they healed, without the consequences of having an illness or allergy that limited what they could eat for reasons other than fear of gaining weight. I felt like I was missing out. I eventually came to realize that just because someone is being kind to themselves by eating certain foods, doesn’t mean recovery will look that way for me. I learned that being healthy and feeling whole is about listening to MY body, not necessarily what works for other people.
Some Warning Sides That Your Diet Could Be An Eating Disorder:
•Black and white/ all or nothing mindset- for example, “I had one cupcake so now I have to have ALL of them that I can get my hands on today, plus all the other “bad” foods I wouldn’t normally have because this is my last chance to eat those foods- after this, I’m going to be good and never have a slip up again. I already ruined today so I might as well binge for the rest of the day”
•Giving moral value to food- it would be dishonest and irresponsible to say that the way our food is produced does not matter. It does. The treatment of humans, animals, plants, and land involved in every step matter and should be treated with respect and dignity. However, assigning specific foods, rather than the way they are produced, moral value is a slippery slope that can quickly lead someone into disordered eating thoughts, which then become disordered eating habits. Certain foods might not be the optimal choice for YOUR body- I’ve learned this as I’ve worked to recover from my chronic illnesses. But that doesn’t mean that those foods are inherently bad, or that the people who eat them are bad.
•Judging others by what they eat- when you start to look down on others for choosing to eat differently than you do, it likely won’t be long before you start harshly judging yourself.
Breaking Free:
•The best way to start uprooting destructive beliefs is to start questioning them. Really dig deep- ask yourself what made you first believe certain things to be true, and if those sources can really be trusted. Do some internal dialogue and explore the consequences, both positive and negative, of letting go of those beliefs and replacing them with new ones. Are you afraid it will result in weight gain? Are you afraid of losing the support of your community of like-minded individuals you’ve bonded with over these shared beliefs?
I highly recommend getting a journal to start deeply exploring some of these thoughts on paper. If you feel like looking below the surface when it comes to your beliefs about food, your body, and yourself feels like falling down a rabbit hole, know that that is completely normal. Many of us spend the majority of our lives sleepwalking through life, without applying to reason to our thoughts, habits, patterns and without questioning the validity of our deeply rooted beliefs.
•With the exception of foods you are allergic / otherwise have dangerous reactions to, stop forbidding certain foods from your diet- I have found that the best way to get more nourishing foods into my diet is to always focus on adding them like medicine, instead of taking away foods I enjoy. That felt like punishing myself, which then led to me punishing myself for inevitably giving in and eating the forbidden foods. It was a cycle of self-abuse.
•Realize that the greatest expert on you is you. It’s so easy to lose sight of that in the age of information overload, but the good news is that it’s possible to find our way back to feeling at home in our own bodies. A great way to begin is by committing to eating most of your meals without distractions such as driving, tv, scrolling through social media, and reading. While you are eating, take time to thoroughly chew every bite and pay attention to how specific foods made you feel. By doing this, I learned that I was allergic to avocados and bananas- two foods that are very healthy for many people but happen to be poisonous to MY individual body. I had never even questioned why I developed rashes and severe stomach pain and nausea every time I ate these foods before, because back then my baseline was feeling miserable and attempting to numb myself to anything relating to my body.
•Realize that very seldom is food the real problem- it is a symptom we, whether consciously or subconsciously, manifest to mask the underlying issues. These underlying issues must be treated. For me personally, my healing truly began when I opened up to a trusted loved one about how I felt dirty after being abused and assaulted at a young age, and so putting anything I deemed “unclean” into my body felt like a grave violation, one that I must be punished by my own hand for. Eating disorders, at their root, have little to do with what we are eating, and everything to do with what is eating us.
The bottom line is that you have to be your own advocate when it comes to listening to your body and giving it what it needs. No one else has more to lose or gain than you. You will come to realize that a truly healthy lifestyle is not something that can be shattered in one bite and that that mentality in and of itself is more toxic to your health than any food. You can begin to heal today, by daring to question the beliefs you have internalized as facts. If your beliefs are harming you, they are worth examining and exchanging for better ones- because you deserve better.
