Othorexia, obsessively healthy, is not yet a medically recognized condition, but its symptoms are becoming more noticeable.
Obsession with meal planning. Elimination of certain food groups, avoiding situations in which pressure to eat impure foods may occur. Counting calories, counting carbs. Feeling of guilt when something wrong passes your lips. It can be applied to many different ways of eating, whether it’s paleo, raw vegan, vegan, or anorexia.
This is not healthy.
But, as a former orthorexic, I always thought it was. Often, people with these symptoms have your best intentions in mind. And to be fair, their diets are usually excellent. But there is more to health than food.
That is the first step for Otorexics to realize. Stress and mental exhaustion due to obsessive health habits lead to greater physical implications than most realize. People overlook the fact that your mind has a direct connection to your body. Have you ever worried about something and seen a rash appear? Start realizing that health is not just about food.
Do you want a good body? Do you want to live forever? Begin to realize how many real implications stress has on all aspects of the body. I would say that the stress from eating a scoop of ice cream last night is more damaging than the ice cream.
Avoiding disease and staying fit is at the top of every Otorexic’s priority list. And rightfully so, I was proud that I cared so much. But why are most human beings really in such bad shape? I believe that our knowledge, or an inadequate understanding of it, is our downfall.
Look at the animal kingdom (except for the domesticated animals that show increasing disease as a result of being raised in human society). There are negligible diseases, obesity and cancer out there. Animals eat real natural food. They may eat 3 times their average calories one day and nothing the next. Your body stays healthy. They can eat one type of food in winter and another in summer. No monkey leaves a banana because he realized that he has already had five today and he has to be careful with his weight. No lion is picky between eating zebra or gazelle because of the difference in cholesterol.
We too are animals. We are highly adaptable animals, omnivorous for hundreds of thousands of years. Our biology is much smarter than us. Stop thinking that we know how to handle our body better. Because we don’t. Calories in do not equal calories out. So eat real food when you’re really hungry and let your body do the rest.
The reason I escaped from orthorexia is because I kept questioning everything. It wouldn’t have worked if a therapist had simply tried to condition me into not wanting to be so healthy. It was the discovery that what I was doing was not ideal for my goals. This led me to primary eating, an easier approach to food, easy-to-understand principles, better health than I have experienced in my short life thus far, and a better life.
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