"eating little else besides uncooked broccoli and cauliflower and tipping the scales at just 68 lb. "
I don't know. It just sounds like the same old anorexia with perhaps a slightly different script inside that woman's head.
But...how different is it really? To be afraid to eat because food is "fattening" as opposed to being afraid to eat because food is "unhealthy"?
Is she trying to say that her goal was never to lose weight, only to be "healthy"? And that she is different in that respect? Not sure.
I don't like the way the article ended by extolling the virtues of pop-tarts. Sounds to me like some scare tactic - a cautionary tale by the huge food conglomerates - you know, "this is what trying to be too healthy will get you, so please, keep on eating our junk food so you don't end up like this woman".
Eating disorders are compulsive behaviors and should be treated on that basis. The particular "flavor" of compulsivity is less important than just treating the "compulsive" disease. Just my humble opinion.
nelie , 02-12-2010 01:43 PM
It is definitely an eating disorder. I believe Gwyneth Paltrow has also said she suffers from Orthorexia.
I agree that it's an eating disorder, and somewhat separate from anorexia. They have very different roots, after all - one is based in fear of being fat, and one is based in fear of food contamination or safety or future disease. So with anorexia, a primary goal of treatment is to try to normalize body image (so that the patient sees their body as it actually is, not as their warped body image suggests), and with orthorexia, the primary treatment goal is to normalize food perception (so that the patient sees foods as they actually are, not as their food phobias suggest)
I wouldn't say that at the end of the article she was really extolling the virtues of pop tarts. She was more saying "There is no reason to be afraid of Pop-tarts". People with orthorexia tend to have irrational phobias of foods (if I eat this ONE POP TART I will permanently damage my arteries), which cause them to avoid eating most foods altogether. It's not the pop-tarts are GOOD or virtuous...it's that they're not inherently evil or fatally damaging in small doses.
chickybird , 02-12-2010 01:05 PM
mandalinn82 , 02-12-2010 02:00 PM
