Orthorexia- the “socially acceptable” eating disorder
My eating disorder like many, has been a shape shifter over the years, meaning at various times I would have met criteria for more than one diagnosis besides anorexia nervosa.
We are all human beings. Fitting into criteria or a neat little box isn’t congruent with being human. And so whilst diagnostic criteria can be useful to help identify or guide which treatments may or may not work for you, I think that’s where their relevance ends.
What is Orthorexia?
The Diagnostic & statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) does not currently hold a separate diagnosis for Orthorexia. Instead it technically fits under the diagnosis Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) , although not perfectly, we return to my point about us being humans and not fitting neatly under one set of criteria.
This is a disorder characterized by an obsession with eating “healthily” or “clean” foods. A person becomes fixated on eating only foods they deem to be “pure”, meaning they can adopt strict rules and restrictions around foods and how they are consumed. I called it the “socially acceptable” eating disorder because it can be hard to detect in a society that praises restriction and demonizes anything else. People often reward people for eating “cleanly”. No eating disorder is ok. Orthorexia is when a persons focus on eating healthily actually becomes detrimental to their health, as a result of the obsessions, restriction, nutritional deficiencies and effect on the body.
It wasn’t until I started recovery for anorexia I realised I needed to challenge this too.
Orthorexia complicated my recovery, as I mentioned eating disorders are shape shifters, my way of “coping” with recovery became focusing on nutrition for a short while. If you are trying to recover by eating only “healthy” foods, you need to challenge this.
You cannot recover from a restrictive eating disorder holding on to ANY rules around foods. My obsession with eating healthily also preceded my development of anorexia and at some points other ED symptoms.
It is generally accepted that people experiencing orthorexia are not always driven by a fear of weight gain or drive to be thin, unlike anorexia. It can result in body dissatisfaction but weight loss it is not the driving factor (usually). It is about feeling clean and pure. I have no doubt that it could lead to anorexia in those of us with the genetic susceptibility because it can result in energy deficit.
Some of the warning signs of Orthorexia may include:
Unhealthy obsession with checking ingredients or contents of food (not driven by a fear of weight gain)
Cutting food groups because they are deemed “unhealthy”
Rigidity, not being able to eat foods not prepared by themselves or consume foods they do not know the ingredients (again not as a form of intentional energy deficit)
Distress, obsession impairing well being
If you think you have a problem, any concern with disordered eating, it is always good to seek help. Talking to a GP, a health at every size aligned dietician or therapist would be a good place to start. You deserve to have mental freedom.
But when life is challenging , you won’t have an eating disorder to contend with as well.
Rather naively, I think many of us hold this notion of “if I could just fix my ED, my life will be perfect”. So let me get in there early and save you the “aha” in months/years to come, set your expectations now, be realistic .
This is something I have come to realise throughout my recovery. The many times I’ve contemplated what recovery means, how I define it, what life will look like beyond my ED.
As I’ve gotten further into recovery and shifting away from my eating disorder, it’s become increasingly apparent that recovering from an eating disorder does not mean life will ultimately be all rainbows and flowers once the ED is conquered. No. That’s just not possible. But, life’s so much better, just putting this out there early.
But, the big thing here, the “aha” moment for me, was recognizing recovering from an eating disorder means we have tools to help us when life throws us a curve ball and returning to the eating disorder does NOT have to be an option.
Additionally when something in life happens out of our control, not having to contend with an eating disorder simultaneously, means we are better equipped to handle the stress.
An eating disorder is a big problem, not a solution. It may feel like it gives you control and comfort around times of difficulty but I promise you, that is the mask of the ED. It is definitely an added problem that you do not need.
Recovery will not mean that when you have a stressful time in your life, a loss or lots of change you won’t experience human reactions such as anxiety, low mood or whatever else we all feel according to life events. Recovery doesn’t make you some kind of super hero that doesn’t feel or get rocked by anything- but it does mean you don’t resort to dangerous/ maladaptive coping mechanisms that you have relied upon until this point. Learning to feel has been a skill I’ve developed in recovery and how to respond to these feelings.
It would be unrealistic to believe you will never have a day of insecurities, or god forbid a bad body image day. Because even people who have never experienced an eating disorder experience these human emotions. But if you’re recovered you won’t obsess over them, you will be able to deal with them and it won’t “ruin your day your week or even your year”! Yes I did just do that.
Recovery is a beautiful thing and it means something different to everyone. The recovery process is not the same for any of us, but I do believe it is important to consider your expectations of what it will mean for your life.
Personally, it has led me to an understanding that beyond ED Recovery work, in order to remain in recovery, l will need to put work into ongoing stress management, imposter syndrome and work anxiety. For me they are interlinked.
It is highly likely this will mean continuing with therapy of some kind to help me work with these issues, because I want to protect my health legacy.
One thing I know, life stressors are not something that are going away because it’s part of life, everyone has problems. BUT don’t let having an ED be one of them or believe that once you have recovered you will be a unicorn and NEVER have another issue.
Extreme hunger in #EDrecovery Because it needs to be when you’ve been starving
When will my extreme hunger end, is my extreme hunger normal? Should I trust this hunger? How do I get rid of this extreme hunger? Why can’t I eat like a normal person? Am I mad? Are these questions you’ve asked?
You’re not alone.
Hunger is normal. Most people wouldn’t give it a second thought, they experience hunger, they eat and move on with their day. It is a normal human function.
For those of us who have been through an eating disorder or any form of disordered eating we have tried to avoid hunger. Lost touch with it, broken our trust and relationship with it.
Almost as a sick joke, when you start recovery, it is very likely you will experience the well recognised phenomenon that is hyerphagia, a.k.a ‘extreme hunger’, though not everyone does. Realistically you are unlikely to be able to go from heavy restriction to eating ‘normally’ straight away.
What is extreme hunger?
It is essentially a biological reaction to a period of restricted intake, this can be through disordered eating such as dieting or an eating disorder. It is the body’s mechanism to heal, there are physiological aspects to do with hunger hormones such as ghrelin as well as psychological mechanisms. It is a means of repaying the deficit of energy the body has undergone to repair itself. So whilst we are here, let’s emphasise that although it feels ‘excessive/extreme’ it isn’t under the circumstances is it?
When you restrict, even in short periods your body begins to utilise energy from all parts of your body. This basically means your body has started digesting its own organs etc. Now imagine if that was for a very long time, the damage done, eating normal quantities of food would be a drop in the ocean, it’s not enough.
As someone who has ignored hunger, restricted their intake of food, this feeling of intense hunger is terrifying but makes complete sense if you break it down logically. I wanted to wait a while before writing this, I wanted to write my experience from the other side to reassure you IT REALLY does get better.
Not everyone will experience it, it will look different for everyone, it may show up right from the offset of recovery, or like me later after a relapse.
I remember trawling the internet for hours, reading scientific papers, watching YouTube videos to try and predict when my ‘extreme hunger’ might subside and if it was normal asking all of the above questions, hoping for an answer.
The truth is, no one can tell you when it will happen, if it will happen or when it will go. The only thing you can be reassured in, IT IS NORMAL, IT WILL GO AWAY when your body is ready for it too. And yes, there may be times it returns, for instance if you enter a period of inadvertent restriction i.e. after a small illness.
I didn’t experience this “extreme hunger” when I first started recovery in 2019, it showed up for me when I truly let go of all restriction and got back on track from my last relapse in August 2020. It manifested in many ways which I’ll elaborate on.
When I was seeking comfort from online sources, article after article would reassure me that what I was experiencing was in fact a completely normal response mechanism to restriction and that if I honoured this hunger it WOULD dissipate. I did not believe any of this at the time. It felt so wrong, like I was doing something wrong (I was in terms of my ED brain, which is a good thing), I felt like it would never end.
But now, if you have found this by searching “will my extreme hunger ever go away, how do I get rid of extreme hunger” I promise you as someone who has come out the other side IT WILL GO AWAY if you obey and don’t judge the hunger. I know you’re probably laughing at me now, “how can I not judge this hunger, I am never going to be able to get through it” YOU WILL.
What does it feel like...
It feels like bingeing. It’s not. It is eating what you need for the deficit. The key difference is restriction and the behaviours associated such as compensation etc. Although- I personally believe BED (Binge Eating Disorder) patients are often in a difficult position- where many treatment providers inadvertently promote restriction, by trying to limit intake, which in my opinion can set the sufferers up to binge more, which makes their recovery journey difficult. But that’s just my opinion. This is why health at every size aligned treatment is so important.
Your mind and body tells you to eat ALL foods ALL the fucking time.
You’ll think you can control it, “I won’t eat as much as that tomorrow, I’ll be normal” but you won’t, you can’t win that, so settle into the discomfort.
You will likely feel full to the point of pain but hungry all at the same time. Your stomach may feel bloated because it’s not yet well rehearsed at digesting and it’s like your stomach can’t keep up with your brain. Or you’ll think your full and done only to then feel as if you haven’t eaten just 15 minutes later. This is completely normal. (I mean nothing about restricting, starving is normal, but this response to that is)
I could eat my dinner & pudding then 30 mins later repeat this and still feel un-satisfied. I felt like a bottomless pit. It was like a survival drive.
I also experienced mental hunger. Mental hunger is a form of hunger, where you are constantly thinking about food, it often occurs when we haven’t 100% connected with our physical hunger cues or satiety.
For me this included dreaming of food, often nightmares of my fear foods, thinking about what my next meal would be, worrying about what it would be, when I would eat, if it was enough/too much, if it was ok to eat XYZ, if I was hungry, am I eating out of boredom, emotions, would I like it, would it be horrible, It was probably more distressing than the physical hunger because it was relentless and totally unimportant. If you experience mental hunger, it’s hunger. It will get better with eating.
For someone who has not experienced this, it’s hard to actually express how intrusive this is. It makes thinking about ANYTHING else really hard. My rule of thumb during this time was, if I thought about it, I ate it.
THIS is highly traumatic to a person who has restricted their intake for so long. I would advise you to enlist support during this phase. Distraction can work a treat when you are eating. Watch a show that holds your attention, eat with someone you trust, take up puzzling, anything to shift focus from the anxiety of eating. (I don’t personally believe mindful eating is very helpful at this stage as it just increases anxiety and our ridiculously critical brains, mindful eating is for WAY further down the track, intuitive eating is the goal. Just not now.
Hot water bottles become your best friend as do things like peppermint tea, they help soothe some of the gastric symptoms (I.e. unbearable gas – having a pet helps for blaming purposes!).
Yoga not only helps with the anxiety side of things, it can help with the bloating.
This is not a time to be wearing things that make you uncomfortable. Wear elasticated pants, those comfy sweat pants, flowy dresses, loose clothing, nothing that makes you feel constricted.
One thing I did, which is probably really weird but it helped me, was to name my belly “Bob”. This wasn’t a particularly conscious effort. But I like to use humour for many things, my distended belly ‘Bob” became a running joke between my partner and I. When I reflect now, I can also see it made the process easier, I separated myself from ‘Bob’, which meant I could seperate myself from my ED. If ‘Bob’ was hungry it was easier to feed ‘Bob’ than it was myself. If ‘Bob’ wanted something my ED was utterly disgusted by, ‘Bob’ got what they wanted, it was ‘Bob’ not me. When Bob was bloated I could laugh and show them compassion rather than receive the barrage of abuse and contempt my ED voice would show me.
I HAVE NO IDEA if this is something that ANYONE else would do. But it worked for me and I wanted to share.
I haven’t fed ‘Bob’ for ages, I feed myself now. But when it was really difficult to do, responding to ‘Bob’ was easier. As a thirty something year old there’s nothing less de-humanising than not being able to feed yourself, and until I could, I enlisted this tool.
Will my extreme hunger ever go? Yes, when? no clue.
Eventually over months my appetite “normalised” I use this term very loosely. There’s no such thing as a ‘normal’ appetite but what I mean is I now have a pretty reasonable relationship with my hunger cues and desires. I am leaning into intuitive eating. This extreme hunger fixed itself with time. I would find it very difficult now to eat large quantities of food (outside of what I was desiring).
One thing I had to accept was, during this time and possibly for the foreseeable future my requirements are not the same as someone who has not waged war against their body. I had a lot of damage to repair, to pay back and so comparisons to your peers will NEVER be helpful. It is not a normal situation to be in, recovering from an eating disorder and so your requirements will not likely be the same as someone who has not experienced this. So leave the judgement behind. YOU do YOU, stay in your own lane. For example there have been times where I have been able to demolish double what my husband can eat, I do not believe in the “his and hers” portions. Or portion sizes full stop for that matter.
Eventually your body will start to heal, it will start to trust you and your hunger and satiety cues will return without any intervention. Just hang in there.
Quash stigma not fat: ED recovery blog 