Orthorexia: When healthy eating becomes unhealthy

"I've only eaten vegetables all day today" - sounds healthy? But it isn't. Orthorexia, i.e. compulsively eating healthy, is an eating disorder in the long term, just like anorexia or bulimia. Nutrition expert Maja Biel knows how to recognize orthorexia and how to get back to carefree eating habits.

Recognizing and treating orthorexia: Nutrition expert Maja Biel advises

BRIGITTE: With your nutritional therapy practice, you specialize in emotional eating and eating disorders – the latter also includes orthorexia. What exactly is that and how do I recognize it?

Maja Biel: Orthorexia, technically known as orthorexia nervosa, is an eating disorder in which eating 'healthily' becomes a compulsion. As soon as things that used to be fun, such as going out to eat with friends, now cause stress or are no longer possible, then that is definitely a warning sign. People with orthorexia impose rules and prohibitions on themselves. Many things feel unhealthy or even dangerous to them. This is often associated with a fear of certain foods. Thoughts about food and ultimately behavior take on an increasingly important role in everyday life. This is when you should pay attention.

When does something healthy become unhealthy?

Orthorexia is all about healthy and unhealthy foods - classic black and white thinking. And what is defined as unhealthy increases over time. As a result, the choice of foods becomes smaller and smaller and nutrient deficiencies can arise.

Healthy and unhealthy – these are words that make no sense at all when it comes to food.

For example, if you only eat salad all day, it will be unbalanced and 'unhealthy' in the long run. This black-and-white thinking promotes the development of eating disorders, and these have increased significantly in recent years. Those affected are getting younger and younger: Social media plays a role here, as access is easy and always available - including to false information.

In our society, nutrition is used heavily for self-optimization and is often associated with discipline, guilt and fear.

What constitutes healthy eating habits?

Diet itself has many aspects: It should provide us with nutrients and give us energy. But eating is also a social thing, something that connects people. On the way back to natural, healthy eating habits, it is important to strengthen the connection to yourself, to your own body. Because it gives us the signals we need: hunger, satiety, cravings. So there is no such thing as healthy or unhealthy, it is always the whole thing that counts. We eat 365 days a year, at least three to six times a day. Lots of time to try new things.

Constant thoughts about food are a sign that your body is not getting what it needs and that you are not at all in tune with your needs.

What about emotional eating – sometimes you can’t even tell whether you’re craving chocolate or frustration?

For healthy eating habits, it is advisable to learn not to compensate for negative feelings such as sadness, anger or stress by eating or not eating, but to find other ways to regulate yourself. In the end, it comes down to intuitive eating and trusting your own body, and we naturally have that within us. It can also be relearned.

Are there people who are more often affected by the pressure to eat healthy?

People who are perfectionists or have low self-esteem have an increased risk of developing orthorexia. This also applies if there has been a history of eating disorders in the family, if the mother has always been on a diet, or if you have a certain job or certain body-focused hobbies. I am thinking of competitive sports and dance, where the body and weight play a major role.

An eating disorder has nothing to do with watching too much 'Germany's Next Top Model'. It always has deeper causes.

An eating disorder always starts with a diet or a particularly healthy diet. We should neither praise someone when they eat particularly healthily nor comment on their weight - even if they have lost weight.

Something that many still do...

Yes, we want to encourage. But it's better not to say anything at all. What the person gets is, 'Oh, I'm worth more now.' But if after a while they start to gain weight again, the person's thoughts start racing: 'I'm not living as healthily anymore, so I'm worth less again.'

It is best not to comment on anything at all: neither body shape, weight loss, weight gain nor eating habits – the same applies to children.

Healthy nutrition in everyday life: What can we pay attention to?

On the one hand, healthy eating means nourishing the body well with the nutrients it needs. For example, with vitamins, minerals and macronutrients that are found in natural foods. But it also means that "fun food" is perfectly acceptable - for example, a piece of cake with regular table sugar that really doesn't contain anything the body needs. So everything is possible, as long as the balance is right.

Brigitte

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