The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– ‘Not medically recognised’ –
Orthorexia is not part of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, set down by mental health professionals in the United States that is also widely used as a benchmark elsewhere. The fifth edition of this “bible,” published in 2013, includes anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, but not orthorexia.
“The term orthorexia was proposed as a commonly used term but it is not medically recognised,” said Pierre Dechelotte, head of nutrition at Rouen University Hospital in northern France and head of a research unit investigating the link between the brain and the intestines in food behaviour.
Even so, says Dechelotte, it has a home in the family of “restrictive food-related disorders -– but it’s not on the radar screen.”
Alain Perroud, a psychiatrist who has worked in France and Switzerland over the course of a 30-year career, says orthorexia “is much closer to a phobia” than to a food disorder.
As with other phobias, the problem may be tackled by cognitive behavioural therapy — talking about incorrect or excessive beliefs, dealing with anxiety-provoking situations and using relaxation techniques and other methods to tackle anxiety, he suggested.
Denoux contends that between two and three percent of the French population suffer from orthorexia, but stresses that there is a lack of reliable data as the condition has not been officially recognised.
Denoux’s figure seems coherent to Dechelotte, who says that women seem to be more than twice as susceptible to the problem as men.
– ‘Bubble of restriction’ –
Outside the world of clinicians, orthorexia seems to be creeping into wider usage.
American blogger Jordan Younger has helped to popularise the term, documenting her own painful downward spiral — since reversed — into unhealthy living.
On her blog, she describes it as “a bubble of restriction,” obsessing over a diet that was “entirely vegan, entirely plant-based, entirely gluten-free, oil-free, refined sugar-free, flour-free, dressing/sauce-free, etc.”
Those who seem to be most worried about healthy food are often concerned about food scandals in the West, Pascale Hebel from the Paris-based CREDOC research centre told AFP.
Over nearly three decades, Europe has experienced a string of food safety scandals — beginning with mad-cow disease and continuing recently with insecticide-contaminated eggs -– as well as mounting opposition to the use of antibiotics, genetically modified foods and corporate farming practices.
The disorder reflects a craving for control, suggested Denoux: food is seen as a form of medicine to fix a western lifestyle that may be seen as polluting or toxic.
“We are living through a time of change in our food culture, which has led us to fundamentally doubt what we are eating,” said Denoux.
Among believers, this “suspicion of being poisoned is deemed proof of insight.”
