We’ve heard of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa among others, and now its Orthorexia nervosa that everyone is talking about.
This is the eating disorder characterized by excessive focus, even fixation on eating healthy foods which may lead to malnutrition and health problems related to nutritional deficiency.
This article tells the story about Kristie Rutzel who stopped eating anything processed, then went on to have only whole foods, progressed to organic. Now she is on a strictly vegan raw food diet ingesting little other than raw cauliflower and broccoli. She weighs 68 pounds and was required to seek medical assistance for anemia and osteopenia (calcium deficiency causes this, a precursor of osteoporosis).
So can healthy eating become a disorder?
In a word yes; when it becomes an obsession, when it crosses the line over into malnutrition and particularly when the malnutrition begins to manifest itself in terms of health issues such as those experienced by Kristie Rutzel.
