Orthorexia gaining media attention

MTV’s TrueLife is having an episode on Orthorexia this Sunday. I haven’t watched MTV in over 5 years, so I am ecstatic that I found this article. Orhtorexia is basically the obsession with eating healthy. Every person with orthorexia has extremely strong views for why they eat the way they do. Usually weight has absolutely nothing to do with the problem. An example would be someone who has to eat every thing organic. The idea of not eating an organic food is enough to make them not eat. It usually starts out with good intentions, but after doing the diet for awhile, reading excessive amounts of information about the diet (including talking to others who eat the rigid diet) and likely feeling somewhat better on the new diet, they begin to become stricter. This can result in the same adverse psychological and social effects of eating disorders, because people will obsess about their diets and limit personal interactions/social gatherings so they aren’t put in a situation where they could make a mistake. Some people lose weight and/or become deficient in certain vitamins and minerals.

If you have some free time on Sunday, check out the episode.I will try to remember to go on the MTV website next week and see if the video is posted; if it is, I will post it here.

[I posted on orthorexia in 2010 when I first learned about the condition]