Eating foods low in saturated fat, cholesterol, salt or sugar is one of the most common medical recommendations, however, the obsession for each milligram of food that we put into our mouth, known as orthorexia, in addition to being a meaningless habit, it can mask a mental disorder.
The hardest thing in these obsessive cases is the identification of symptoms, substitutes tend to look healthy, so it is so difficult to determine when they cross the line between good and harmful, so the question is what is the dividing line?
- Eating healthy is having a complete.
- Varied and balanced diet.
- There is no food that contains all the nutrients that the body needs.
- So it is so important to include different groups of foods in the dishes (fruits.
- Vegetables.
- Cereals.
- Meats.
- Etc.
- ).
- All are essential and should be digested in the quantities necessary for the body.
That is why it is so healthy to vary the usual diet and try to include all kinds of foods, only in this way can we provide the body with the necessary energy for daily life and maintain its optimal functioning.
Any habits taken to the extreme can be harmful. In this case, even if, at first glance, eating healthily is psychologically healthy behavior, if the person lives on it will become an obsession, the pathology associated with this behavior is known as orthoxia. , for many people, remains unknown.
This behavioral disorder is characterized by the development of extremely rigid eating habits, based on the control of the nutritional components of food and the demonization of certain foods. People with ortorexia consume only organic farming products, i. e. without GMO products, chemicals, pesticides or herbicides, so their dishes are composed exclusively of natural foods, without preservatives or sugar, and without any fat.
To give you an idea, orthosexics feel a rejection when they eat a slice of raw ham, simply because they see the white part of the fat, and they also refuse to drink tomato juice if they know that the tomatoes they use are not organic.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) does not yet recognize this behavior as a disease, its progress has strong implications for the physical and psychological well-being of the individual, studies have included that behind this obsessive care there is often a mental disorder.
Eating disorders are often progressive. So, at first, the person stops eating industrialized foods and processed products, then, when they develop the disorder, they are likely to gradually begin to remove the necessary nutrients from the diet, such as vegetables, meats, or non-organic foods. Vegetables.
Sometimes they become more demanding and stricter with everything related to food, they suppress more food groups, which usually do not replace them properly, which eventually becomes significant deficits of essential vitamins and minerals, if the case is very serious and the obsession cannot be controlled, it is very likely that these people will eventually suffer from malnutrition.
Because of this under-consumption, they show symptoms of fatigue and are more likely to develop diseases. Your immune system is compromised by lowering sodium levels in your blood and also by thrombocytes, red blood cells and leukocytes.
In addition to these physiological consequences, psychologically, are people with high dopamine levels and low Serotonin levels, who have anxiety associated with excessive euphoria.
People with orthosexics usually spend hours and hours carefully planning their meals, analyzing everything they eat by avoiding eating foods that don’t meet their strict quality standards, and if they interrupt their plan for any reason they feel quite guilty.
They tend to isolate themselves socially. The disrecognise of the composition of the dishes of the restaurant prevents them from eating away from home, so, in order not to feel that uncontrollability, they end up cooking their own food.
These people find it difficult to taste food because they focus more on the attributes of what they eat than on their smell, taste or appearance, however, a person with orthoxia is unlikely to recognize that they have this problem. because of the great acceptance that exists in today’s society of people who follow a ‘healthy lifestyle’.
People more predisposed to develop obsessions often have a very characteristic set of personality traits, in this case people who tend to obsess over the amount and way of eating also tend to have a great need for control in other aspects of their life.
This obsession with control often turns into anxiety. One anguish that can be faced in a very different way: one of the most common is that of “the aggression of the refrigerator”. In addition, they show exaggerated perfectionism in all aspects of life (professional, family, social, etc. ), accompanied by a strong anxiety, their friends and acquaintances define them as hard, detailed, inflexible and conventional.
In addition to the risks already mentioned, the truth is that orthoxyxia may be the beginning of other eating disorders, such as anorexia; Despite the similarities, the differences between the two diseases are clear, anorexical patients are afraid to put on weight and have their own. altered body concept, therefore, are not obsessed with the biological origin of food, but with the amount of calories and fats they contain.
Maintaining a healthy diet offers many benefits. Among them, it helps our weight maintain a healthy relationship with our height, maintain cholesterol levels and also helps prevent certain cardiovascular diseases, however, all these benefits disappear when eating control becomes an obsession.