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Step 1
Determine if you have an obsession with food. Ask yourself these questions. Do you think about food for most of the day? If most of your day is spent thinking about food, or planning what food to eat or not eat, you must begin to realize that this is not normal. Thoughts about food and eating should only occupy a very limited portion of your day, typically at breakfast, lunch and dinner. If thoughts of food and the control of what you eat is taking up a disproportionate amount of your day, you may have Orthorexia Nervosa.
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Step 2
Look for other identifying symptoms. People who have Orthorexia Nervosa, are not just thinking about food, but thinking about what foods are "good" and what foods are "bad". They obsess about eating vegetables, often raw only. They obsess about reading food packages at the store. They obsess about every bite of food they put in their mouth. The key here is "obsession". You can be a vegetarian or whole foods person, and not have Orthorexia Nervosa. If you are obsessed with your food choices, though, you may be making unhealthy choices based on fears and emotions, not facts and common sense.
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Step 3
Determine if your food ideas are driven by very STRONG emotions. This is not just about having a dislike or moral position about certain foods, like meat or processed foods. It is about having a heightened, extreme feelings about certain foods. Feelings of fear, and danger, that produce great anxiety. The person I know, believes that eating meat will doom her to eternal damnation! Literally. She only eats raw vegetables, which is fine, but her obsessions keep her from understanding how to combine foods for proper nutrition. She almost killed herself from a lack of potassium and iron in her diet.
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Step 4
Identify whether you have uncontrollable urges to eat when you are nervous. People with Orthorexia Nervosa are controlled by very strong compulsions. When feeling nervous, or very happy, or excited, or guilty, they experience overwhelming urges to eat. There are obsessive-compulsive elements to this disorder.
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Step 5
Determine if you are underweight. There are known standards of body size and weight that demonstrate the condition of a person's health. These are not arbitrary standards, they are proven, scientific indicators of health in humans. If you have any of the above symptoms AND are underweight for your size, by more than 20 pounds, you may have Orthorexia Nervosa. In extreme cases, sufferers of this disorder are often emaciated to the point of looking skeletal.
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Step 6
Understand the difference between Orthorexia Nervosa, and Anorexia Nervosa. The person suffering from Orthorexia eats, and takes pleasure in eating but is repulsed by CERTAIN foods. A person with Anorexia avoids eating and is repulsed by all foods.
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Step 7
Get help before your health deteriorates to a dangerous condition. There are many places to go for help with eating disorders. Check out the National Eating Disorders Association, or NEDA or the National Institute of Mental Health or HIMH. You can find resources there and a list of providers who can help you with treatment.
Comments
melissalewis said
on 8/10/2009 Interesting - I'd never heard of Orthorexia Nervosa. Thanks for educating us! 5*
karileighk said
on 7/17/2009 I knew someone with this as well. She is still battling..
turtledove said
on 7/14/2009 I think I knew someone with Orthorexia Nervosa. She was obsessed with eating only "healthy" foods, and exersize. All I knew about at the time was Anorexia. 5*
cherrystew said
on 7/13/2009 Nice job! 5*