“Oh dear, I’m really worried about my daughter. She’s not eating unhealthily enough. I wish she would stop obsessing over what she eats, I mean, what if she doesn’t get a heart attack by her 30’s? And that diabetes, it takes time to cultivate good habits like that. I have it, my parents had it, she should get it too,” said exactly zero parents in the history of human existence.
However, this simple matter of logically wanting to live longer and perhaps not pay ginormous amounts to the medical profession has led psychologists to conclude that healthy living is a mental disorder: ‘orthorexia nervosa‘ is defined as, “a pathological obsession for biologically pure and healthy nutrition.” Oh, now it looks like I need to get myself treated by injecting a hamburger into my neck, stat!
All the usual mainstream suspects like CNN, Fast Company, Popular Science and other media outlets have all begun to repeat on cue that:
“Orthorexia nervosa is a label designated to those who are concerned about eating healthy. Characterized by disordered eating fueled by a desire for “clean” or “healthy” foods, those diagnosed with the condition are overly pre-occupied with the nutritional makeup of what they eat.”
So if I want to eat better quality food that maybe does not contain so much saturated fat, is NOT proven to cause cancer, obesity and painful death, or perhaps does not profit McDonald’s and Coca Cola (they are losing customers fast), I must be crazy right? That this ‘revelation’ on the part of the mainstream media and even psychiatry coincides with plunging corporate junk food profits is OBVIOUSLY a coincidence….
To add insult to injury, it is well known that psychiatry is, itself, deeply connected to the very, very wealthy pharmaceutical corporations (as admitted by even the Psychiatric Times) that create drugs to ‘treat’ mental disorders. Drugs are often created first, and then assigned to treat a disorder based off of the side effects they produced. So why not create a disorder from something that would affect the profits of ‘Big Fast Food’, while at the same time pushing pills made by Big Pharma? I mean, even CREATIVITY has been branded an illness!
George Orwell himself could not have envisioned a society that would willingly suppress every modicum of human difference, even traits that are unarguably good, on the word of corporate interests.
Certainly, a few individuals take healthy eating too far and perhaps even harm themselves, ironically because they have completely eliminated fat or something like that from their diet – but all you need to do is ask yourself two questions:
First, how many people live shorter lives because of healthy eating? Second, how many live shorter lives from eating fast food all day? There is no disorder that specifically describes ‘addiction to unhealthy junk food’, (binge eating disorder describes overeating in general) and a Google search brings up articles like these (this is despite addiction to junk food having real health consequences and being a real thing). A search on ‘healthy eating disorder’ promptly brings up ‘Orthorexia‘, despite the lack of any scientific study proving its harmfulness.
McDonalds needs to make money somehow, what better way than to denounce its staunchest critics as crazed loons? Just shut up, pay up and eat up that sub-standard food.
I like the way the article is written. Rather than turning it into some grey, monotone article, you say it as robustly and honestly as a human being should. These psychiatrists are completely freaking insane and that fact should be broadcasted as plainly and obviously as possible. It’s reminding me of that thing where they said that non-conformity is a mental disease… loool. Conformity IS VIOLENCE! But if your kids and friends don’t bow their heads in fear to the established ‘authorities’ and rulers and throw every every bit of their self respect, then they have a problem and need to be drugged into compliance… This monetary society needs to disappear forever. When profit becomes the primary concern, corruption and death is all that will follow. The Venus Project is the alternative, look it up if you haven’t heard of it yet.
I’ve been crazily eating healthy foods for 40 years. I am a super fit 60 year old, who walks, jogs swims and does Pilates with more energy than most 20 year olds. I am the same size as 40 years ago as well. I have very little in the way of grey hairs, wrinkles and aches and pains. If you’ve got to have some mental condition, I choose this one.
oh i understand where this is going, more and more poeple are becoming more healthy, so all these unhealthy chain restaurants inject some pseudo-science in our societies. well too bad, eating ‘healthy’ was eating normal before these retarded chain restaurants existed. take them all way and what kinds of food have you left? normal food. no weird burgers, no crappy fat souce. just regular food.
I am not a supporter of the Diagnostic Manual and many of the disorders cannot realistically defined as mental illness. Nevertheless, as a psychotherapist, on this one, I was shocked by the definition cited above of Anorexia Nervosa. It is totally inaccurate and dismisses a disorder that is indeed potentially life threatening, and in fact has 15% mortality rate. t is not an “obsession with healthy food”. I recommend that the writers and publishers do a little more research. Below, I have included the actual diagnostic criteria for Anorexia Nervosa from the DSM1V
Eating Disorder Diagnostic Criteria from DSM IV-TR
307.1 Anorexia Nervosa
* Refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and
height, for example, weight loss leading to maintenance of body weight less than 85%
of that expected or failure to make expected weight gain during period of growth,
leading to body weight less than 85% of that expected.
* Intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even though underweight.
* Disturbance in the way one’s body weight or shape is experienced, undue influence
of body weight or shape on self evaluation, or denial of the seriousness of the current
low body weight.
* In postmenarcheal females, amenorrhea, i.e., the absence of at least 3 consecutive
menstrual cycles. A woman having periods only while on hormone medication (e.g.
estrogen) still qualifies as having amenorrhea.
Type
Restricting Type
: During the current episode of Anorexia Nervosa, the person has not
regularly engaged in binge-eating or purging behavior (self-induced vomiting or misuse
of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas).
Binge Eating/Purging Type
: During the current episode of Anorexia Nervosa, the
person has regularly engaged in binge-eating or purging behavior