20
&
January 2015
Good Intentions Gone Awry:
Can “Eating Healthy” Be Detrimental to Your Health?
By Annette Racond
Now that it’s officially 2015,
many of us are determined to
adhere to our New Year’s resolution
to maintain the cleanest, purest,
most flawless and healthiest diet
imaginable. For some of us, this
means going organic; eliminating
gluten; cutting out dairy; steering
clear of anything resembling sugar;
hiding all salt shakers; consuming only raw foods; deleting carbs;
relying on foods that are raw and
organic; subsisting on vitamins and
supplements; becoming a die-hard
juicer; and reading every single
item on every single label of every
single food product that makes its
way into shopping carts. Each item
listed on the label must be thoroughly investigated and researched,
even if it’s the last of 25 ingredients.
Then, of course, menus need to be
carefully crafted to avoid impurities.
This can obviously be a daunting
and time-consuming task – especially when carried out daily.
The above scenario raises the
question: Can “healthy eating” be
detrimental to your health?
The answer is a definitive yes,
according to Jessica Setnick, MS,
RD, CEDRD, author of The Eating
Disorders Clinical Pocket Guide
(www.eatingdisordersbook.com)
and Senior Fellow at Remuda
Ranch at The Meadows, a comprehensive treatment center specializing in eating and co-occurring
disorders for women and girls in
Wickenburg, AZ (www.remudaranch.com).
“Whenever orthorexia is
described in the media as ‘taking healthy eating too far,’ people
have a standard knee-jerk reaction:
‘How can eating healthy be bad?’
Sometimes you even hear, ‘I could
use a little obsession with healthy
food.’ This really highlights the
misunderstanding our society has
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about mental illness. You never
hear someone say ‘I could use a
little cancer,’” says Setnick, who was
quoted in an article back in 2009 on
orthorexia in The New York Times
entitled, What’s Eating Our Kids?
Fears About ‘Bad’ Foods. Orthorexia
has recently been making headlines
in publications, such as The Wall
Street Journal (http://online.wsj.
com/articles/when-healthy-eatingcalls-for-treatment-1415654737);
CNN.com (http://www.cnn.
com/2014/10/07/health/orthorexia); and other prominent media.
One patient stands out in
Setnick’s mind – a young man
in search of health and fitness.
He exemplifies the paradox of
orthorexia, says Setnick, because
he genuinely believed he was doing
himself a service.
“He didn’t come into my office
saying, ‘Help me with my eating
disorder.’ He found me because of
my credentials in sports nutrition
and wanted advice about ways to
improve his diet. But he would only
eat energy bars and vitamin pills.
He couldn’t stand the thought of
eating anything that didn’t have all
the information on the label. No
fruit, no veggies… there is no one
who could believe this was healthy.
Yet he was completely unwilling to
consider that possibility, and he was
definitely not interested in changing
his ways.”
Sometimes – as in the case of
orthorexia – our best intentions
can turn on us. Orthorexia tends
to promote isolation, nutritional
imbalances, anxiety, stress, and can
adversely impact our cherished rela-
tionships.
Some researchers suggest that
orthorexia is better classified as
an anxiety disorder. According
to Kevin Wandler, MD, CEDS,
President of the International
Association of Eating Disorders
Professionals Foundation and
Medical Director of Remuda Ranch
at The Meadows, “With orthorexia,
you see some similarities to
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
(OCD) where someone is afraid of
contamination. But in OCD, there
are usually many behaviors that
patients avoid. In orthorexia, it’s
just food, food, food.”
Since there is currently no
official diagnosis for orthorexia,
patients often receive a diagnosis
of anorexia, as the disorders share
a lot in common. Though, this
doesn’t describe the w