Orthorexia

Lets chat about the type of eating disorder that you may not realise is present…orthorexia.

Orthorexia is a pattern of disordered eating that centres around an intense preoccupation with eating “pure,” “clean,” or “healthy” foods. At its heart, it’s not really about food at all, but about a desire for safety, control, and doing the “right” thing for one’s body, which in the long run, may be putting more stress on one’s body than one realises.

People with orthorexia can start with good intentions, I’m speaking from a place of love and experience, because I have been there, and I didn’t realise how much of a hold this had over me for a long time. The intentions may be, wanting to feel better, lighter, more alert, healthier, or even preventing illness. Yet, over time these intentions can embed so deep that they become rigid rules, naturally causing foods to become ‘good or bad’ ‘clean or toxic’ which when eaten, can cause, guilt, anxiety, shame, purging, and extreme food noise. 

The scary thing is, that orthorexia isn’t entirely obvious, and it can blend into socially praised behaviours, making it hard to realise and identify, even for the person living it! I would spend hours, and I mean hours, analysing food labels, food origins, quality, sourcing, I would often walk away from a product several times before deciding if it was coming home with me or not, the aisles became daunting and before I knew it, I would have spent a good hour or so getting worked up in and amongst the aisles. It may look like discipline from the outside, but it can be extremely taxing on the body mentally, physically and socially.

This fixation with eating ‘clean’ caused me to cut out entire food groups, like, carbs, fats, animal foods, processed food, and if someone offered or insisted I try something they were enjoying containing these items, my body would feel a tremendous wave of anxiety come crashing over me, feelings of fear, shame and a desire to control would overwhelm me.

This control and desire to not go near ‘bad’ or ‘toxic’ foods turned to real fear, which made me feel anxious, distressed and guilty, and the need to compensate or restrict. For example, there are certain moments I look back on where I remember being consumed by guilt, after perhaps nicking a bite of my husbands pizza, because it contained gluten and dairy, or for trying a spoon of tiramisu because it was probably made with white, refined sugar, and oh my goodness the world would shake if the chef wasn’t able to make poached eggs, and I had to eat fried eggs, because it was of course fried in seed oils. I would feel guilty the rest of the week, and I would restrict the rest of the day and the following day, make sure I did 2 workouts and sauna to sweat out toxins, this may seem extreme, but to me, in the moment it was ‘the best thing I could do for my body’.  ultimately, I was needing to eat in a specific way, I was not flexible with what I would eat, and if I was out and there was nothing that I ‘could’ eat, well, then I wouldn’t eat at all.

For me, I had just recovered from anorexia, I was at a healthy weight and happy, but looking back now, I can’t have been totally happy, as I was trying to still grasp on to something to control. This time, it wasn’t about my weight or my body image, it was about not putting anything ‘harmful’ into my body. Unlike other eating disorders, orthorexia is usually less focused on weight or appearance, more focused on purity, health and discipline… yet this can be just as emotionally toxic and gripping as any other eating disorder.

It can be debilitating and wildly harmful, creating nutrient deficiencies, anxiety and stress inducing, cause social isolation, reduce freedom and joy and often down the line lead to other eating disorders. Social media can play a huge role in evoking feelings of guilt and fear of eating certain foods, it is full of false facts, fads and friendly faces sharing their opinion… yes, a lot of the time we are consuming opinions, not facts. It is so important to tune into your bio individual body, and filter out the noise, not everything you see on social is true, nor will everything you see work for your body.

All photography by Camila Urreaa

Yes, I focus on a diet whole foods forward and seasonal at the core, but you best believe that now, if I wish to try the pizza, tiramisu, fried eggs I will do it, and I will enjoy it, because I know that also the stress of consuming such foods I previously labelled as bad or toxic, can be just as inflammatory on my body as actually trying them and enjoying them.

If this is you, consider this your gentle reminder to seek the freedom you deserve, there is so much more waiting for you beyond the aisles, the menu, the kitchen...

Big hug,

Lottie xx