Eating Healthy – A Mental Disorder

IanD · Apr 21, 2012

A California doctor named Steven Bratman determined in 1997 that a “fixation on righteous eating” is a disease he coined as orthorexia nervosa. “Those most susceptible are middle-class, well-educated people who read about food scares in the papers, research them on the internet, and have the time and money to source what they believe to be purer alternatives,” says Ursula Philpot, chair of the British Dietetic Association’s mental health group.

IanD · Apr 21, 2012

I note Trinkwasser, a (former) member of this forum commented on the article.

xyzzy · Apr 21, 2012

An interesting perspective Ian. Personally I think developing a condition that could make your feet fall off allows you to get somewhat fixated on what you eat!

Like many people I expect, I had this niggle over the years that the quality of everyday food was being lowered by doing things like injecting meat with water to bulk it up and any number of other tricks. Food entered an age of mass production and distribution and increasingly places that did deliver good quality local produce such as butchers and green grocers have all but disappeared.

That to me is a lot different to the "fixation" that some people have undoubtedly developed with an ever increasing list of things that are nowadays supposedly bad for you. The modern "super" food concept is just as much a fixation.

The problem with the fixation of a few is that it soon turns into the fashion of the many.

phoenix · Apr 22, 2012

In some people, fixation with healthy foods can morph into a very real eating disorder.
Here's one dietitians account:

My first encounter with orthorexia occurred when I was a young dietitian and met with a slightly overweight 47 year old woman, RC*, who was recovering from a heart attack. She adapted to a low fat diet quickly but a couple of months later when she was re-hospitalized with heart beat irregularities and profound weight loss I suspected that something else was going on. After interviewing her, I discovered she had eliminated all fat from her diet, restricted her food intake to only a few organic fruits and vegetables purchased only at a specific local market. RC drank organic tea and consumed very little protein in the form of beans, which she allowed only occasionally. Her heart beat issues were due to a lack of calcium and potassium and she was dangerously thin. While in the hospital, she told me during a consultation, “You should be thrilled that I’m eating so well. I will never have another heart attack!” It seems that since RC’s first heart attack, she had become ‘scared straight’ and started a very restrictive fad diet that claimed to reverse and cure heart disease. Her zeal was such that during her hospitalization she had to be moved to a different room as she was scolding her hospital roommate for eating meat!

http://www.orthorexia411.com/Contact_Me.html

Seems to me a scenario all too possible in someone with diabetes.

As Xyzz says having a health condition in which diet plays an important part makes fixating on diet part of our lifestyle.
Unfortunately this attention to diet is one of the factors that play a role in the developing of eating disorders and people who have diabetes both T1 and T2 (particularly women ) are statistically more likely to develop an eating disorder.
http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-dia ... rders.html
and here in a blog a person with T2 alludes to her problems.

What is it about diabetes that promotes diabetic eating disorders? The first thing doctors tell you after they diagnose type 2 diabetes is that you need to get control of your blood sugar.

It often means a complete diet overhaul. We must stop eating desserts and fast food, white bread and most snacks.

Most comfort foods are out, and dietitians encourage weighing and measuring food, counting calories and losing weight.

What they don't tell you is that all of the diabetic medicine doctors offer will make you hungry and/or cause weight gain. And the condition itself fights weight loss with insulin imbalance.

Preoccupation with food is a major sign of an eating disorder, but type 2 diabetic doctors encourage that behavior. With diabetes you feel like you have an eating disorder.

You might wake up thinking about diabetic diet issues and go to bed stressed about the mistakes you made that day. Meanwhile diabetic medicine is making it harder to stop weight gain

http://www.a-diabetic-life.com/diabetic-eating-disorders.html
I for one don't share the views of the blog author or Trinkwasser's rather reply but then I've known 3 people with eating disorders and attended one of their funerals last year.

noblehead · Apr 22, 2012

Eating a healthy diet is paramount when you have a life-long condition like diabetes, I'll admit I have done research on the food and drinks I put in my mouth and don't see in any way that this akin to having a mental disorder, it's when you take something to the extreme as in the case that Phoenix highlighted that problems may begin.

borofergie · Apr 22, 2012

“Those most susceptible are middle-class, well-educated people who read about food scares in the papers, research them on the internet, and have the time and money to source what they believe to be purer alternatives,” says Ursula Philpot, chair of the British Dietetic Association’s mental health group.

Hey that sounds exactly like me although, judging by symptoms, I seem to have developed an acute case of "unorthorexia nervosa".

I'm sure there are lots of T2 diabetics with eating disorders but I doubt very strongly that encouraging the newly diagnosed to improve their diet acts to promote this in anyway. The fact that some (but not all) of us get here by way of metabolic syndrome would suggest to me that most of us weren't exactly prone to eating disorders prior to diagnosis.

As with most things, you need to weigh up the risk that someone will get an eating disorder as a result of the advice their given, against the increased risk of long term complications from not controlling blood sugars. I don't have any numbers, but it wouldn't seem to be much of a contest in this regard.

If there is a problem with Diabetics and eating disorders, then it comes from (mainly young female) T1s who intentionally under medicate with insulin because of the perceived weight gain associated insulin therapy (31% according to this study):
http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/1994 ... n-purpose/
http://www.dwed.org.uk/

phoenix · Apr 22, 2012

Diabulimia is the most publicised (although only recently) but several studies suggest that there may be no difference in the prevalence of eating disorders between people whether T1 and T2' ;though the specific type of disorder may be different. In the case of T2 the disorder may in fact precede the diabetes.
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/21/7/1110

hanadr · Apr 22, 2012

My pet peave on the subject is the popular idea of the "Healthy balanced Diet". No-one knows how the food triangle and other descriptions of this "Diet" came about. It definitely didn't come from any scientific study!
Hana

catherinecherub · Apr 22, 2012

I think this pharmacist has got it right,

"If it comes in a shiny packet, if it has to be advertised nationally or if you think it may have come out of a nozzle in a factory, don't make it a regular part of your diet......."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2 ... sfeed=true

There is no need to advertise anything that is alright to eat as previous generations would tell you. Cook from scratch using fresh ingredients. We don't see kids being bombarded with adverts for vegetables, fresh meat and fish or the like.

lucylocket61 · Apr 22, 2012

I think that obsession with anything can become a mental disorder. And, going from media coverage, people can become obsessed with the strangest things. Not just food or drink, but anything.

Personally I am becoming very aware of what I eat, and what it does to me. But I have enough common sense to differentiate between awareness and obsession.

I am not sure how anyone could tailor the dietary advice given for Diabetics to avoid triggering obsessive/compulsive reactions in susceptible people

didie · Apr 22, 2012

I think there are far worse things you can have a fixation with rather than healthy eating. Anyone read about the girl who eats nothing but Margarita pizzas? Now that's a fixation to worry about.

I think food scares are mostly a load of twaddle, but I am most certainly quite fixated on what I eat as I want to keep my sugar levels down and stay as fit as I can for as long as I can.

Eating Healthy – A Mental Disorder

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