Reclaim You- Orthorexia: Unraveling the Obsession with Healthy Eating
Season 1: Episode 6- Orthorexia: Unraveling The Obsession With Healthy Eating with Abby Albright
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Welcome back to Reclaim You with Reclaim Therapy!
Have you ever found yourself obsessing over the "cleanliness" and "purity" of your food choices? You might be experiencing orthorexia - an intense fixation on healthy eating that can consume our thoughts and lives. Join Sarah and Abby, as we share about orthorexia and explore how this obsession can leave us feeling exhausted and isolated.
We'll discuss the differences between orthorexia and other eating disorders such as anorexia, and how orthorexia's focus on healthy eating and rigid food rules can impact our cognitive functioning and emotion regulation. If you're questioning whether you're struggling with orthorexic tendencies, we'll provide helpful tips and insights on navigating these food rules and finding the support you need.
Remember, you're not alone - and discovering a healthier relationship with food might just align better with your values.
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To learn more about Reclaim Therapy and how to work with a therapist on the team, head to www.reclaimtherapy.org.
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00:01] Sarah: Hi there. Welcome to Reclaim You, a podcast published by the Reclaim Therapy team. Join us as we share stories, tools, and insights on how to reclaim you in the wake of trauma, disordered eating and body shame. Grab your coffee, tea, or your favorite snack and get cozy because we're about to dive in.
[00:19] Sarah: Welcome back to reclaim you Today we're talking about a term and concept that feels like it's been on the rise for a handful of years now. We're talking with Abby today. Welcome back, Abby. Hi, everyone.
[00:34] Abby: Hey.
[00:34] Sarah: So we're talking about Orthorexia today. Definitely something that we work on with clients and that feels like is more in the general conversation in the eating disorder community and even just in the general public these days. If someone listening hadn't ever heard of Orthorexia before right now, what would your definition be? What is orthorexia yeah, I think I.
[00:56] Abby: Kind of hone in on the intense focus fixation on that healthy, clean, pure eating in whatever way those labels align to what you believe to be healthy, clean, pure. What that might look like is sort of obsessive analysis of, like, a nutrition label. What are the ingredients in this food that I'm about to eat? Is it clean? Is it pure? Is it unprocessed? For some, there might be sort of like an ethical component to their eating. How was this food prepared and processed? Is it done in a way that is, quote unquote, clean and aligned to my ethics? Just sort of that obsession on healthy eating, clean eating. So for me, like Orthorexia, it's sort of honing in on that part of maybe my definition, which would be like sort of this obsession, this fixation. How much of your day is it taking up thinking about your meals and the food that you're taking in? How much is your life shifting to mold, to your food rules? How much is it impacting your physical being, your emotional being, your relationships? So that's sort of how I kind of think about Orthorexia, how it shows up.
[02:12] Sarah: I'd love to hear a little bit about just maybe your interest in working with Orthorexia, or maybe some experiences that you've had with Orthorexia.
[02:22] Abby: Yeah, I've recently become really interested in Orthorexia, as the term, like you said, is becoming more and more used, more common. As I started to learn about what Orthorexia actually is, and that it's like a thing I reflected on my own experience and really resonated with the term, with the label, and we'll dive into what it is, but just sort of that focus, that fixation, that obsession with sort of clean, healthy, pure eating. I learned the term and I was like, wow. I have experienced these tendencies at various points in my life. I can pinpoint going to college and really feeling this desire to start fresh, start on a good foot. It was like the first time that I had true independence and freedom and was living on my own. And the perfectionist within me was like, this is the time to live life on my own terms. And what a way to do that other than to control food and control eating. And with college being the time that I could then pick and choose everything that I ate, that perfectionist within me was thrilled at that.
[03:38] Sarah: Thriving, probably, on the fact that you could really wrap your hands around something.
[03:44] Abby: Yeah. And so going to college, I carried with me the message, like, it's really important to eat healthy when you make this transition. It's really important to, quote, unquote, watch what you eat. I think, too, underneath it all, this was a really big transition for me to move away from home and live on my own. And so, looking back, I realized that focus on healthy eating kind of took off and really served as a way to sort of manage the anxiety and the fear around this huge transition. So, yeah, I've been really interested in orthorexia as a concept, an experience, because of my own reflections on what I was experiencing in college. And even beyond that, as you're talking.
[04:32] Sarah: About that, I'm thinking about my own experiences very similarly as a young adult really trying to be super healthy. And I feel like this is even before, there was a lot of recipes with coconut flour and almond flour and all of these things, trying to bypass regular or unclean ingredients. I know that's much more maybe, like, trendy now, and people are doing it a lot more, but I remember, where do I find these ingredients that are cleaner and that will help me stay healthy? And it did. It became this fixation of trying and wanting and kind of villainizing. It becomes a really slippery slope into how far orthorexia can go.
[05:15] Abby: Yeah, it's so slippery. It's like this pursuit of health, and then the pursuit of health becomes sort of unhealthy in this way that it's just like it's like all consuming. Everything you can think about, what am I going to eat for this next meal? Is it going to be clean, pure, healthy? Is it going to fit the rules that I have for myself? It's exhausting.
[05:37] Sarah: And I think when you're in it, you may sometimes I won't generalize for everyone. I know when I was in it, I didn't necessarily understand how exhausting it was. It just felt like a must, like a have to sort of like any other eating disorder symptom. In lots of ways, it just was it felt normal until it did.
[05:58] Abby: Yeah. And I think, like, talking about that normal piece, like, it is really normalized. I think so much of my experience with Orthorexic tendencies, I guess I'll call them, these tendencies to really fixate and obsess on, I feel like it sort of fell under the radar and wasn't sort of viewed as potentially problematic because our society, our world glorifies healthy eating. It glorifies and praises these types of fixations. There's sort of a morality attached to the pursuit of health and clean eating. And so, yeah, that normal piece really stands out to me. Looking back, I can kind of question and notice how exhausting and anxiety ridden that time was for me. But in that moment, it felt like I was doing the right thing, the good thing.
[06:52] Sarah: Yeah, that's really helpful. And I'm just thinking of our last conversation about diet culture and how that is often just the rumble underneath of these really harmful messages from the culture, from the medical paradigm that can really just feed, feed, feed orthorexic tendencies.
[07:12] Abby: Yeah, I think too, it's becoming more common the term is becoming more common because diet culture is shifting in a way that is so focused on this sort of clean, healthy eating. So if you even think about wellness influencers, maybe however many years back, the focus in diet culture was maybe more sort of on a standard diet to lose weight and sort of now we're seeing this shift into, oh, it's not about weight, it's about your health, it's about cleanses and detoxes. So I think the cultural shift in diet culture is what is allowing for orthorexia to really take off and for us to become more aware of it.
[07:56] Sarah: Yeah. What would you say differentiates Orthorexia from other eating disorders like anorexia? Any really, that off the top of your head, what are the differences, would you say?
[08:08] Abby: Yeah. The first thing that comes to mind for me when I'm thinking about orthorexia in comparison or contrast to anorexia is that orthorexia may not necessarily be rooted in a fear of weight gain or a desire to lose weight that might be part of someone's orthorexic tendencies. There might be this sort of lingering, like if you eat clean and healthy, there might be this sort of side effect of weight loss or weight management and like, yay for you. But it's not like the focus in my mind orthorexia orthorexic tendencies. The main focus is healthy eating, rigid adherence to food rules. I'm only eating these types of foods and not these because these types of foods are good and clean and pure and these are bad, these are toxic, these are unhealthy versus anorexia. That core, that central focus is more around the fear of weight gain. But there's so much intersection and overlap as well.
[09:16] Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't have to be connected. It can also be very connected and intertwined. Absolutely.
[09:24] Abby: I know for me and my experience, I've always throughout my life experienced thin privilege and so there was never anti fat bias directed at me. I've never felt sort of external pressure to look a certain way or to lose weight because of the thin privilege that I had. And I often reflect on that as it relates to my own experience with disordered eating and how it makes sense that perhaps my relationship with food manifested in this way because of my thin privilege and because of the way in which diet culture has shifted in its focus on health and wellness and clean eating. Something I think about a lot. And it's not to say that that fear of weight gain, that desire to lose weight, was never sort of lingering for me, but I think because of my thin privilege, it did not take center stage.
[10:23] Sarah: Absolutely. What do you think it was for you that kind of snapped you into this? Knowing of, like, oh, this actually doesn't feel good, or, this actually doesn't feel right for me when it comes to some of the orthorexic behaviors or symptoms that you were experiencing.
[10:41] Abby: I don't know if I remember a specific point in time where I had a realization like, this is just not it. This is not serving me in any way. I think it was really gradual looking back, my sort of orthorexic tendencies, as with all sort of disordered eating, they lie on a spectrum. Mine came and went in waves. There were waves of sort of normalized eating and waves of intense obsession and fixation. After college, I experienced a longer period of sort of more quote unquote normalized eating, and the orthorexic tendencies still lingered. And I remember any moment of maybe heightened anxiety or more stressful situations that I was in, and I grasped, I clung to. I was like, oh, remember those things that made you feel so good. Temporarily go back and do those things, because that might be the cure all.
[11:34] Sarah: Yeah, absolutely.
[11:37] Abby: Go do that thing that made you feel really in control. Go do that thing that made you feel worthy, that made you feel good, that made you feel closer to perfection. So I do remember sort of in that period of the waxing and waning with this focus on healthy eating, I experienced physical symptoms of not feeling good. There was one time where I remember experimenting with some sort of cleanse, and at this point, the cleanse was really wrapped up in spirituality. That was part of my experience, too. Eat clean for sort of consciousness and spiritual awakening. Yeah. And I just remember trying that out, experimenting with something new, like, oh, this is the thing that's going to solve all my problems. This is the thing that's going to help me feel less anxious. This is the thing that's going to make me feel more embodied and grounded. And I got really sick. My body just kind of rejected it.
[12:38] Sarah: Yeah.
[12:40] Abby: And I said earlier, I don't remember one specific point in which and now I'm taking that back. I'm like, I think maybe that was a point in time where I was like, this pursuit of health and wellness is actually making me feel, first of all, physically terrible. That felt so present. It was not great. And then it allowed me to kind of think a little bit more about like, okay, this physically sucks. And it's causing me so much stress. Like, I'm just in this cycle that doesn't seem to end, and I try this thing out to reduce my anxiety or make me feel, like a little bit more like I have it together and in the end, I feel like nothing's together. I feel terrible. My anxiety is through the roof. So maybe that was that point in time that just was like, no more. I need to figure something else out. Like, this is not how it should be.
[13:41] Sarah: The thing that's standing out to me is how it shows up. Or through XCI means in all of these different ways. So the spiritual component of, like, to be more embodied, to be more connected, do these things very rigidly, kind of obsessively, so that you can feel what it's like to be at home and peaceful in your body and how that really caused so much backlash for you. And I think it does for so many people. And also it just shows up in so many places. So it feels just so important for people to understand that these rigid rules and morality and good and bad and you are good or you are bad based on the way that you're eating or the foods that you're consuming, just keep your eyes open because they show up in so many different places. Of course, we know diet culture is everywhere, but these little pockets that you wouldn't maybe quite anticipate these rules and hooks into disordered eating, they're still there. So it's like eyes open. Eyes open and pay attention and trust yourself of like, oh, is this actually making me feel more embodied and connected to myself? Or is it making me feel completely disembodied and disconnected because I'm just revving on rules and shoulds and I've done bad and I feel guilty and I need to make up for things.
[14:59] Abby: It shows up in places that you maybe wouldn't expect. You think, oh, I'm actually moving away from this rigidity, or I'm moving away from this obsession, I think of wellness culture within a yoga space. And it showed up really strongly for me there. And I did not expect that to be a part of my experience with my yoga practice because that feels like a space or a place where you get more in touch with yourself and there's a little bit more flexibility and compassion. And yet what showed up for me in that space was especially around food. Like, you do it this way, and if you don't do it this way, you're bad, you're wrong, you're not doing it right.
[15:43] Sarah: The other thing that's standing out is you talked a lot about perfectionism and anxiety. I'm curious if you have a few points of those connections of orthorexia with perfectionistic tendencies. If there is a vulnerability there and anxiety and how it all maybe overlaps.
[16:01] Abby: Yeah, I think perfectionism plays such a huge role in orthorexia this idea that we are only worthy and good if we're doing things perfectly, if we're doing things right. And so when we can't be perfect in other areas of our lives, when we feel like we're falling short in other areas of our lives, it makes so much sense that we might turn to something that we do. Every day, which is eat to exert some control over. That feels like the place where we can maybe get a little bit more perfect. Like, perfection is just sort of setting these really high, really unrealistic standards for ourselves. And I think I saw that a lot within myself and my relationship with food. Here's the standard that's set by whoever, whatever blog I read that day, whatever influencer at the time. I don't know if it was like an influencer, but whatever blog I was, like, reading or book I remember reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivores Dilemma, and there were some precedents set in that book around. And my first quarter in college took a class in nutrition. Every sort of guideline in that class in that book I took as gospel. Like, this is the only way to do it. This is the hard and fast rule. And if I don't meet that unrealistic standard every single day, every single time, guilt, shame, bad, imperfect. And then with that guilt and shame, with perfectionism, it's like, okay, fell short. Perfectionism doesn't allow us to just let that go. The bar is now higher, and I'm going to strive to meet that next time. Tomorrow we're doing it again. We're going to try it again. Perfectionism just oh, I think it preys on the messages we receive from everyone in society. You have to eat this way to be worthy and good. And then, like you mentioned, anxiety. Anxiety is right up in there. Like, we feel anxious. And what better way to maybe tamper down that anxiety than to say, oh, I got it. I have the solution to feel a little bit more in control. Anxiety is sort of this futuristic, like, what's going to happen? I need to prepare. What better way to kind of tamper that down than to say, like, I have just the solution. I'm going to control what I eat. I'm going to have sort of these rules that I follow. There's structure, there's order. There's nothing that's unknown. And so it's sort of like, yeah, safe. And so it feels really, like, temporarily, like, it soothes that anxiety, but ultimately it's a Band Aid, that anxiety. We don't actually feel it or process it. It still lingers. And then when we inevitably mess up, the anxiety just gets a little bit higher.
[19:01] Sarah: Yeah.
[19:02] Abby: And up and up we comes out in other ways.
[19:04] Sarah: So what would you say are some of the consequences that people experience when they've been dealing with orthorexia for a long time or even a short period of time? What have you seen personally or with clients in your work? What are some of the ways that it impacts people just in their overall life. Not even just their inner sense of self, but maybe the other ripples attached to that.
[19:27] Abby: Yeah, I think of sort of the impacts of orthorexia in categories. Right. So there's like I mentioned, physical manifestations of this orthorexia encourages us to cut out certain food groups, cut out certain foods altogether and because they're deemed bad, toxic, unhealthy, unpure, processed, whatever and because we may be doing that, it's very possible that we become malnourished. Weight fluctuations, the impact on the immune system we're not getting true, adequate, consistent nourishment, possibly right. Like whatever food rules people are really adhering to malnourishment is something that I think is really important to name. And then with that impacts on cognitive functioning, impacts on emotion regulation how are we able to regulate ourselves? We may not be able to as easily if we're not adequately nourished, that's sort of an emotional part. Right. And we talked so much about the fixation and the obsession and how much it just takes up brain space and time and energy. We talked about in our diet culture talk just like the time, the money, the energy that gets spent the life thief that is diet culture, the life thief that is this pursuit of health and wellness and then socially it really encourages us to isolate and withdraw. If you think about social eating, these rules that we may create for ourselves make it really hard to eat in social situations. Like if we enter a restaurant casually with friends and we didn't have time to plan, how are we going to be able to show up for those relationships, show up for those experiences if we're so in our head about what's in this food? What am I able to eat here? Those are the big things that stand out to me.
[21:20] Sarah: If someone's listening and they're thinking like wow, this really resonates for me. Could I be struggling with orthorexia or just maybe even acknowledging that some of this rings true? What's even just like small like baby teeny tiny step that someone could take towards maybe exiting some of the cycles of behavior around orthorexic tendencies?
[21:46] Abby: You said one and I'm thinking of two but I'll try to make them concise. Yeah. One the thing that I think about is just starting to become aware of what the food rules are and it's believe that folks are really very aware of what their food rules are but perhaps getting really curious when those food rules are very present and how it makes them feel. So just noticing that noticing when a food rule is popping up, when there's a should popping up, when there's if I do this, then this if I don't do this, then this letting it sort of be there, witnessing it and maybe starting to question it a bit with some curiosity where did this rule come from? Maybe I can write it down and just look at it on paper and ask myself interesting, super interesting, curious about where and when I adopted that for myself. And as I get curious about that, really asking the question, is this something that's serving me? There's plenty of other questions we can ask ourselves there, but I think step one really is just noticing when it's really present, creating a little distance, where's this coming from? I think another thing I'm thinking about is just how much flows out into other areas of life, this sort of rigid thinking, this sort of all or none, these rules. So like, noticing how the rules are showing up in other areas of our lives and creating that same space and starting to question, is this a rule that's really serving me? I think number two really was just this encouragement of if you're able to find sort of processors to dive into this a bit more, these rules can feel so true and so real and it's sometimes really hard to explore them and question them on our own. So even if it's a loved one that you really trust or a registered dietitian, a therapist to bounce around ideas with like, okay, I have this food rule, I think it comes from this place. It's been with me for a long time. Can we explore it a little bit more deeply? I find that to be really important.
[23:53] Sarah: And of course, Abby at our practice specializes in treating eating disorders and does really wonderful work with folks who are struggling with orthorexia. So finding a therapist, whether it's Abby or someone similar to Abby that has this knowledge. And I think something that feels so important to our practice is that all of our therapists have lived experience with disordered eating and body image concerns. So we get it right. We know our experience. That doesn't mean we totally understand your experience, but we understand some of the pain and some of the cycles of behavior that can feel so hard to get out of. So finding someone who really, truly gets it and can hold space for you really compassionately and support you as you move through some of these behaviors and urges and things like that, I think you're right on that. If you have the capacity to do that, I think that's always really supportive. Anything else you feel like you'd like to add about orthorexia or any messages to folks who may be struggling with orthorexic behaviors or tendencies?
[24:55] Abby: It's important to just you're not alone in this. And it makes so much sense that a lot of us have struggled and maybe still struggle with food in this way. It's so pervasive, it's so normalized. And also if you're questioning is this normal? Or it's not that bad, right? I think I've had that thought a lot before. Like, oh, it's not that bad.
[25:21] Sarah: That idea of like, you have to enough to get support, like, whose version of enough is that?
[25:27] Abby: Right. So I think just yeah, like we said before, getting curious about that thought too. It's not that bad, right? Or really honing in. What's my experience with this? What's my experience in my relationship with food? How is it impacting my day to day? And is this the way that I want to live? Does this way of engaging with food align with my values? I think that might be a nice starting point to really question or get curious about that thought. Is it really that bad? But you're also not alone is another big piece that I think is important to share.
[25:59] Sarah: Absolutely. And we'll include a few resources in the show notes, a couple of blog posts about symptoms of orthorexia and some screening tools, and a blog post that Abby has written on Orthorexia as well. If you're interested in just learning a little bit more on your own time, we'll link those in the show notes for you to check out as well. Thank you so much, Abby, for sharing some of your story and the insight that you have and some of the good work that you do with folks that you work with. So thank you so much.
[26:27] Abby: Thank you, Sarah.
[26:29] Sarah: All right, everybody. We'll be back next week with another episode. We'll talk to you then.
[26:34] Sarah: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Reclaim You. Be sure to, like, comment and subscribe and check us out on YouTube at Reclaim You. If you're looking to start therapy for trauma disordered eating or body image concerns, head over to our website@www.reclaimtherapy.org to learn more about us and our work. We'll be back next week with another episode. Until then, take good care of yourself.
Here at Reclaim Therapy we provide specialized body image and eating disorder therapy in Pennsylvania.
Our eating disorder therapists in Pennsylvania provide trauma focused support for people struggling with chronic dieting, anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, binge eating disorder and compulsive exercise. Our therapists also provide trauma treatment for PTSD and complex trauma in our office in Horsham and virtually via telehealth for Pennsylvania residents.