Can a healthy diet make you ill? Yes, says physician and author Steven Bratman. At least when the topic of food increasingly dominates your life and becomes an obsession. Typical of orthorexia are the increasingly strict dietary rules, which at worst can lead to deficiency symptoms and social isolation. Bratman had studied nutrition intensively before becoming a doctor.
He was a vegetarian and also had strict rules: He only ate fruit and vegetables when they were freshly harvested and chewed each bite 50 times with perseverance. At first he felt good, strong and full of energy. After two years, the first concerns arose. "The need for food that was free of meat, fat and artificial additives made eating in company impossible," writes Bratman. His thoughts increasingly revolved around the type, quality and preparation of food. Everything else in his life became less important: "Whenever a good conversation got going, thoughts of sprouts would intrude."
In his book "Health Food Junkies", Bratman writes about the eating disorder orthorexia, which affects up to two percent of the population. He describes the case of a patient who suffered from a lack of protein due to her strict diet, which in turn caused frequent fainting. Bratman wanted to admit her to hospital, but she objected. A short time later, she lost consciousness while driving and had an accident.
Even though this is an extreme case and orthorectal eating behavior varies, there are similarities in the clinical picture. What constitutes a healthy diet is defined subjectively. While some avoid foods such as table sugar, others ban entire food groups and eat only raw foods. Either way, dietary rules are becoming increasingly strict, meaning that fewer and fewer "good" foods are available. This can lead to weight loss and an undersupply of essential nutrients, which in turn can result in malnutrition and great suffering.
Do you think your thoughts revolve too much around healthy eating? The test developed by Bratman will help you to make an initial assessment of whether you might have orthorexia. Please answer the following questions:
Did you answer "yes" to more than four questions? Then you could have orthorexia. In this case, please contact a counseling center for eating disorders. Here you will receive information on the topic and find out who to contact locally for further help. The staff are of course bound to confidentiality. You can contact the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) on: 0221 892031.
