Jason Wood was sitting in a restaurant on vacation with his husband, angry and upset because he couldn’t swap pita for fresh vegetables in his hummus plate.

The pain wasn’t overblown, Wood said. It was 20 years of an eating disorder and the anxiety and stress that comes with it culminating into one moment, he said.

Wood has orthorexia, an eating disorder that isn’t in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, also called the DSM, which is the formal guide for clinical assessment of mental health conditions. But clinicians are seeing a rise in orthorexia among patients, said therapist Jennifer Rollin, founder of The Eating Disorder Center in Rockville, Maryland.

“My hope is that it will be added to the DSM, but unfortunately, it just seems to be a very slow process to get something in there,” Rollin said.

Orthorexia is a fixation on eating “clean,” as defined by a set of rules dependent on certain individuals and the context they live in, said Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, an eating disorder physician and founder and medical director of the Gaudiani Clinic in Denver. A November 2023 study found that about 3 in 10 participants showed signs of orthorexia.

Often, this disorder goes unnoticed or underestimated because it’s hyperfocused on healthy eating, said Wood, director of community engagement at the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, alsn known as ANAD.

The lack of understanding around this condition kept Wood’s friends and family from raising concerns — sometimes applauding his efforts to stick with rigid eating principles — even as he withdrew from friends and lost so much weight he couldn’t keep himself warm, he said.

Here is what you need to know about orthorexia.

Diet culture in disguise
Focusing on eating healthy sounds like a good thing, right? Not always.

Eating disorders often have similar underpinnings: a genetic predisposition combined with environmental factors, Rollin said. And often the disorder centers around a set of rigid rules, whether it be calories, timing of eating or the ingredients in food, she added.

When those vulnerable to eating disorders latch on to only eating in a way they consider healthy, the behavior can go from a preference to an obsession, Rollin said.

Over the years, Wood said his list of unhealthy foods grew and those considered healthy kept shrinking until he found himself leaving parties because he couldn’t find anything he would allow himself to eat — and that left him with a lot of anxiety, he said.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/01/healt...ess/index.html

iifym crew didn't spend hours making protein ice cream and fitting lucky charms into their jacked arms and chests for this

that's how people like me and you are gonna die too. we're gonna be bloated form a big meal, hung over from drinking too much and we'll be outside for some stupid reason in 95 degree weather and then it's don't stop believing boyo. all over.

Thats actually a comfy way to die esp knowing he prob did this nightly for years and was happy af doing it, imagine getting aids and living all healthy and just falling in the bathroom and dying like richard simmonds

nobody's got aids!


but now that you mention it…dropping dead from a quick to the face heat induced anxiety attack doesn't seem so bad. you feel a little weird and then you pass out and it's just over.

More like feeling like chit if I eat mostly bad carbs. Brb reading the label means I’m disordered for not becoming obese and diabetic

The problem with “psychology” in general is it is parallel to justice, like everything they do no longer needs standards applied to everything else. Having zero judgement at all about your life is not “healthy”.

Imagine trying to be in our social club with no gut fanook

Most people around the world are starving and don't know how they're going to feed their children…meanwhile…we're purposely starving ourselves because we think we're too fat…

One party wants to feed the needy the other wants to starve them

Should’ve stopped at DSM 3 imo.
Too many people need to have some “illness”. Can’t wait till the 8th version comes out and it calls people who won’t date transgenders some fancy new disorder.

we're two steps away from being healthy in any way is a disorder

Very common in bodybuilding circles, body dysmorphia coupled with eating disorders