Orthorexia, healthier than healthy living: What to do.

Healthy living is something that has become very popular in recent years. We all seem to be paying more attention to our health now, and even the environment is often included. I recently heard that half of the Dutch already call themselves part-time vegetarians for various reasons. Unfortunately some people also go through with healthy living in which case you suffer from orthorexia. Whereby they live so healthy that it is no longer healthy. In fact, since 2015 there is four times more research on this than before.

To find out what orthorexia is now, what you can do about it and where the line is between healthy and too healthy (and therefore unhealthy) living, be sure to read on.

What is orthorexia?

Orthorexia is a disease where you feel it is super important to live a healthy lifestyle . However, people with orthorexia strike out in this so they actually have a just-not-healthy lifestyle. However, because they exercise a lot and eat healthy food it is not always obvious to those around them that they suffer from orthorexia.

There are a number of characteristics by which orthorexia can be recognized. In fact, people with orthorexia are highly likely to:

• Lots to do with movement.
• Being busy a lot and thinking about their diet. In which even eating less than they actually want can be part of their diet. They also focus very much on their weight, which must stay the same or go down. There is often no room for change in the diet, you can plan your food very much and a cheatday is no longer an option.
• Paying a lot of attention to their appearance.
• Have a physically healthy lifestyle.

With orthorexia, diet is mainly something that causes problems. So it's not that people with orthorexia can always be found in the gym, but rather regularly.

Where is the line between healthy and unhealthy living in orthorexia?

There are a few ways to set a clear boundary for people with orthorexia.

As with anorexia and bulimia, with orthorexia you are thinking about food all day long. You plan what you are going to eat and think a lot about the nutrients in the food. With an apple, you may no longer think about the nice juicy taste, but the fiber that is good for your gut and the potassium that is good for your blood pressure and fluid balance in your body. When facts like these predominate in your mind instead of just "yeah nice and healthy," that's one of the first alarm bells.

Another limit is the total elimination of unhealthy foods, such as chocolate, French fries, pizza and the like. Instead, it is healthy to have a cheat day 1 day a week or at least 1 day every 2 weeks. On such a day you can eat whatever you feel like and it is then normal to eat chocolate, chips, cookies, pizza, fries, shoarma or anything else "unhealthy". This is an important signal for your body not to store all the fat and that you still have access to fatty and sugary foods. The cheat day is actually healthy, as long as you then have a healthy diet the rest of the time.

From the experiences of people who have had orthorexia, another major alarm bell is cutting out healthy food. Obviously, this is pushing through a healthy diet. For example, if you cut out eating potatoes, sweet or regular, altogether for one reason or another. Or that you no longer want to eat fruit because it has a lot of sugars in it. Fruit is generally healthy and you can eat 2 pieces of it a day with ease.

Orthorexia test

To find out if you suffer from orthorexia, answer the following questions:

• Do you use healthy eating to become happy even more than spirituality?
• Does dieting make you feel superior to other people?
• Does your diet affect your relationships and work?
• Do you use healthy, pure, foods to eliminate fears, even if they are not about your health?
• Does nutrition make you feel more in control than makes sense?
• Is your diet getting stricter for the same feeling?
• The idea of purging yourself when you deviate from your diet?
• Does your interest in nutrition cause you to focus only on that instead of other life goals?

If most of these questions can be answered Yes, it is wise to examine your relationship with nutrition more closely, possibly with help.

Causes of orthorexia

Your opinion of your body, or certain body parts, can cause you to suffer from orthorexia. For example, you may think that your belly or legs are not beautiful or even your whole body.

A keen interest in a fit lifestyle can also make you orthorexic. For example, before exercising, you pay attention to eating certain nutrients after which you pass out.

If your mind is also thinking a lot about your weight and fearing being overweight or trying to do something about it, it can also slip into an overly healthy, and therefore unhealthy, lifestyle.

People who value appearance are also more likely to develop orthorexia.

For example, women with orthorexia have a poor relationship with their bodies. This does not mean that they do not like their bodies, but rather that there is a kind of friction between how they see their bodies and how they see themselves.

Orthorexia by proxy

Unfortunately, it also happens that people impose this too healthy, and therefore unhealthy, lifestyle on others, such as your own child. This was first observed in Italy when a 13-year-old child was hospitalized for being underweight against his parents' wishes. He was underweight and also suffering from motor disorders. Eventually it turned out that the child had to follow a vegan diet from his parents and could not deviate from it.

Italy has also recently banned feeding your children a vegan diet because it is very unhealthy for growing children. An underweight baby was also hospitalized there because of a vegan diet, and that's when the Italian government had its way.

In addition, a doctor may work with a patient to focus too much on nutrition to solve a health problem. When that focus is so great, it can actually cause the physician or patient to adopt a lifestyle that is just not healthy.

Treatment of orthorexia

With orthorexia, it is important to regain a normal relationship with food and with your body.

The goal is for you to stop worrying about food all day long and to enjoy food again. After all, healthy food can also be enjoyed well, and that enjoyment of food is sometimes hard to find in people with orthorexia.

Tip 1: Schedule a cheat day

Sometimes it is helpful to improve the practical side of your health first, and one of the first steps you can take is to add a cheat day into your diet. Possibly even plan what "unhealthy" foods you will eat that day. You can start small, with a croissant, and then have something different each cheatday until you can enjoy a potato French fry or a pizza again.

Tip #2: Normal relationship with nutrition

Enjoying taste again rather than the nutrients in food is also important to reducing orthorexia symptoms. By refocusing on taste rather than nutrients, you can also feel less guilty and dirty when you indulge on a cheat day. This focus on taste allows you to actually enjoy the taste of chocolate instead of knowing what nutrients are in chocolate.

One way to enjoy food more is to use mindfulness when you eat. In this case, you focus your brain on the stimuli your senses are receiving and stay with your attention in the here and now rather than on what you may or may not eat and on what you may or may not eat during the next eating moment.

Tip 3: Check your beliefs

As you could see from the test for orthorexia, the beliefs you hold about your diet or the lifestyle you have can get in your way quite a bit. For example, if you are convinced that this lifestyle makes you superior to other people that is actually an unhealthy belief. If nutrition makes you happy, that's actually as bad as the feeling of happiness an eating addict gets from a binge.

A hypnotherapist can help you figure out your beliefs and whether such a belief makes sense and helps you become happy.

Tip 4: Believe in yourself

Another problem that orthorexia can disguise is having low self-esteem. If your diet makes you feel superior that actually says something about what you think of the rest of yourself. You then don't think of yourself as superior in other character traits or anything like that. Self-hypnosis, self-compassion and mindfulness all help you be more self-confident so that diet no longer has to fill that role.

Want to learn more about mental techniques for healthier nutrition or to help others do so? Then come to a workshop or seminar. Also check out the training courses of the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands.

Sources:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40337-016-0105-3

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40519-016-0310-8

http://www.mdedge.com/currentpsychiatry/article/108309/eating-disorders/when-eating-healthy-becomes-disordered-you-can