Customer Reviews

Health Food Junkies: Orthorexia Nervosa: Overcoming the Obsession with Healthful Eating

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

People can become obsessed with almost anything, why not healthy eating? Dr. Steven Bratman makes an argument for a new type of psychological disorder based on his own problems and those of his patients in this regard. The book contains a quiz to help you identify if you or someone you know has this issue, along with helpful suggestions for taking it easier in your food habits without abandoning good health practices. The author also outlines the usual causes of the disorder, in order to help those who have it recognize how they might best change.

"Obsession with healthy diet is an illusion, an eating disorder." I didn't take that statement too seriously, until I got to Dr. Bratman's vivid description of the time he left a great conversation at a party to go savor an avocado he had been ripening and day dreaming about. Then I remembered that I have known people who spent 8-10 hours a day shopping for, preparing, and eating very special diets. Aha!

The disorder is a problem when it causes someone to eat a too restrictive diet. The book considers the most popular ones, and generally advises that it is all right to follow it if you just loosen up.

More serious, the food focus can cut off contact with others. They don't "smell" right because they don't eat what you do. Or they eat offensive foods that you cannot stand to be around. Increasingly, you spend time by yourself instead of with other people. This is often a strategy for dealing with a fear of being with other people.

The most common psychological causes are a desire to have total healthy safety, compulsion for complete control, wanting to conform to the "thinness" social ethic, searching for spirituality through food, food puritanism, and using food to create an identity. That last one is pretty scary. "You are what you eat" is being taken literally.

I was surprised when I took the test to find that I seemed to have this obsession, even though I spend little time thinking about food, eating food, or being rigid about what I eat. This made me wonder how well thought through this disorder really is. But I plan to watch myself in the future, and try to understand if I am overdoing it.

Dr. Bratman argues that food diets have little science behind them. The diets work for some people because of "suggestion" and for others because they have an undiagnosed food allergy or deficiency. As a result, he suggests that you experiment with eating different diets and see if you feel better or worse.

He is particularly negative about the "Eat Right for Your Type" diet, and states that he expects to get slammed for his opposition. Well, I graded him down one star for this, even though he said you could you use if you loosen up on the regimen a bit. The new book "Live Right for Your Type" is full of scientific studies that show predilections for certain diseases and conditions with certain blood types. These studies are also linked to nutrition in various ways. My reaction was that Dr. Bratman should have addressed these studies, unless he was unaware of them. If he was unaware of them, how good are the rest of his conclusions?

In fairness, I would have graded him down one star anyway, because I did not see a scientific basis in the statements for his conclusions. Much of what he was describing could simply be related to something else. His approach seems very qualitative to me. As someone who struggles with this issue himself, he may just be seeing everyone else in the same way. After all carpenters often see all problems as something that can be solved with a hammer.

Whether this condition exists or not, his advice is probably all right. Admit you have a problem. Identify what has caused you to be obsessed in this way (in my case, it was being leaned on by my doctor with dire threats of future ill health). Normally eat a plate or a bowl of a balanced diet, and get seconds on one food only. Go easy on the guilt when you "slip." Eat graciously with your Mother and others you care about, regardless of what is served to you. Relax when you need to make exceptions to your normal diet. Keep your mind off of food. Watch out for hidden agendas sneaking into your eating.

As a physician, friend, or parent, he suggests that you intervene when you see someone dieting past the point of safety, the diet is making the person miserable, the person would like to quit the diet and cannot, a third party is involved creating a diet "cult" experience, or the diet seems to have become an emotional ilness. Use tact, humor and gentleness rather than strong arm tactics because people are touchy about these issues.

May you have all the health, happiness, peace, and prosperity that you would like!

I recently had a huge fight with a macrobiotic friend over the "deadly" importance of such alien foods as nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and a few others), dairy products and fresh fruit.

Now, I've been a macrobiotic myself for years and I was not arguing for MacDonalds, just saying that to complement a mostly-vegetarian diet with small amounts of good quality "forbidden" foods is not a "sin".

I was so shocked by the out-of-proportion reaction of this apparently very open friend that I begun questioning my beliefs. And my conclusion was the same as Dr. Bratman: friends, it's all very well to eat healthy food but let's get real, food is food and if we were not so spoiled for choice we would eat whatever was available as our ancestors always did. I'm deeply appreciative of the positive way macrobiotic guidelines have helped me improve my diet but macrobiotic people (me included untill this friend's overzeal shocked me out of it) do tend to become fanatic and semi-religious about food.

Does it seem reasonable to argue that while dairy food is "poisenous" (no matter that being used by humans for millenia) strange (and delicious, but that's not the point) food from Japan is vital for your well-being? Now, does this seem to you to have something to do with Macrobiotics being invented by a Japanese and that dairy food was unknown in Japan before being introduced by us, "barbarians"?

Same applies to fresh fruit: I like fresh fruit and no only do I eat it daily as I eat it raw, the way nature provides us with it. Does this sound a bad habit to you? It would if you were macrobiotic because fresh fruit is too "Yin" in the macrobiotic view and thus creates an inbalance in anyone who eats it.

But are really the philosophical and religious concepts of "Yin" and "Yang" the best tools to choose a lifestyle? Most macrobiotic people I know are coffee addicts and smoke heavily: they tend to think this is OK because caffeine and smoking are considered "Yang".

This is so widespread that I had never thought about it before but clearly you have a psychological problem if you think that an apple or a bit of cheese are worse for your health than coffe and cigarettes.

And this is all that Dr Bratman says: people with these behaviour problems should seek help.

When author Steven Bratman, M.D., first used the term "orthorexia nervosa" in
a magazine article, he got some confused responses. " 'I would like to use
the orthorexia you describe to cure my knee pain,' one caller said. 'I've
already cut out all deadly-nightshade vegetables, grains, sugar, caffeine,
meat, and nuts. Do you think I should go on a water fast one week each
month?' "

But as most of us can guess from its similarity to anorexia, orthorexia is not
an idealistic dietery theory but rather describes a problem: unhealthy
obsession with healthy diet. "To be perfectly honest, I intended the term
somewhat tongue in cheek, as a kind of sassy way to surprise clients who were
proud of their obsession and make them think twice about it," the author
explains.

Dr. Bratman is a conventionally trained M.D. and an alternative medicine
practitioner who himself spent many years adhering to idealistic, healing
diets such as macrobiotics (a complex diet that involves balancing yin and
yang, but you cook the food) and raw foods theory (never eat cooked foods).
Other sections deal with food allergies, the zone diet, candida, supplements,
tablets and magic substances (super blue-green algae, barley magma, sheep
thyroid, pregnenolone, ciwujia, spirulina, kombucha tea, and royal jelly among
many others). He maintains respect for many of these diets. He also says,
"Food allergy treatment can be a powerful healing approach that at times
appears to reduce symptoms dramatically in practically any illness." He does
not believe alternative medicine is a joke, and has success stories to tell
from his practice.

It's just that he started seeing a lot of people with a fixation on healthy
eating who had lost their perspective and balance. Could the cure be worse
than the disease?

He also says over and over that we should not go to the other extreme and
simply eat junk. "It is certainly not the point of this book to dispute the
value of healthy diet. Proper food choices can clearly reduce the risk of
cancer and heart disease, and may be able to prevent other major illnesses of
middle and later life. This is a well-known and incontestable fact. What I
do want to point out, however, is that there is a dark side to this reality,
an unintended consequence of the emphasis on eating properly. There is more
to life than reducing cancer risk. Too often this holistic perspective is
forgotten by those who emphasize that food is the best medicine."

Just what is this dark side? "One of the primary features of
orthorexia is the feeling that we are better than others because of
our fantastic diet. Since the rest of the world does not adhere to
the God-given laws of healthy eating (as we uniquely understand them),
we can't eat with the rest of the world. Besides, a great deal of our
identity is tied up in diet." And further, "The net effect is social
isolation. The ancient satisfaction of breaking bread with a friend
is denied us; we must either bring our own bread (a concoction of
potato flour, amaranth, and spelt that only an orthorexic could love)
or eat alone. This isolation is a real emotional harm caused by
orthorexia. As my health food guru realized in Chapter 1, 'Rather
than eat my sprouts alone, it would be better for me to share a pizza
with some friends.' A good half or more of the joy of life comes
from relationships; when orthorexia interferes with those
relationships, it causes a real impoverishment of our lives."

If one were to believe the negative reviews below, one could get the impression that Dr. Bratman recommends living on burgers and fries alone. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Although this book is clearly written for a popular audience and is dominated by ancedotes, some of which may be a bit overly cute, the author does a very good job differentiating between the pursuit of a healthy diet (which he wholeheartedly approves of) and the elevation of diet into an ideology or religion, which is what he warns against. He supports his arguments both with scientific evidence and with personal observations.

Among my acquaintances I see a wide variety of diet styles from junk food aficionados to health conscious eaters to allergen obsessed orthorexics, and I could see this book, with its truly holistic perspective in choosing a diet to maximize overall well-being, being of interest to all of them.

My endorsement of this book stems from my (rather unusual?) personal experience. After reading the other reviews, it's hard to tell if anyone else might be approaching this book from the same place I did. Regardless, I hope I can offer insight to some.

I owe it to Dr. Bratman that I now know when my eating disorder truly began. Though I am now bulimic, orthorexia nervosa was my "gateway" disorder for over a year. I had no idea. I had always been taught that eating disorders were about diets and wanting to lose weight--I simply wanted to eat healthily. I wasn't interested in macrobiotic or raw food diets as Dr. Bratman describes, but I read the UC Berkeley School of Public Health Wellness Letters religiously, I researched everything I ate at the USDA nutrient data lab, and I counted every (milli)gram of fiber, protein, alpha omega three fatty acid, and polyunsaturated fat. I am not OCD. I just wanted to eat right. After all, what's wrong with taking care of myself? What, you want me to eat pizza and chips? How can you rationally endorse that?!

And the essence of an eating disorder is the inordinate concentration on food to begin with. Internalizing article after article about "The War on Fat" and "America's Obesity Epidemic" made me all the more zealous. I think this book is essential reading, especially now, especially for people who see diet and exercise as the solution to life's ills. I fear all the attention and moralization on food in our culture will send more susceptible and naive individuals like myself into this stupid, threatening obsession.

Kudos to Bratman and Knight for bringing to light the true harm in our food. It's not McDonald's. It's that some of us can attach so much moral weight and identity to such a relatively unimportant thing.

Many diet gurus are selling more than a lunch: the philosophy that underlies their "ideal" diet can become more important than whether the diet works or not, and may become a powerful (even life-controlling) obsession. When that happens, you no longer have a diet, but an eating disorder: orthorexia nervosa. This disorder is probably more common than folks realize; it is prevalent in "extreme" diets like raw foods and macrobiotics, where some diet gurus actually suggest that you can become more "perfect" via diet.

Dr. Bratman's book is the first to shine light on the dark underside of the "ideal" diets. The book includes information on how orthorexia can begin, a diagnostic test, and advice on how to overcome orthorexia and reclaim your life.

This book will be denounced by the very diet gurus whose income depends on selling you a dysfunctional diet philosophy that promises "perfect health, happiness, or even godhood" - all from what is on your lunch plate. As silly as that seems, many people are scammed by the diet gurus. This book will help you avoid being scammed.

*****
Health Food Junkies: Orthorexia Nervosa: Overcoming the Obsession with Healthful Eating is a thorough exploration of a common but normally undiscussed problem in the health food community---a healthy focus which progresses into a fixation or obsession with "correct" or "right" eating. I like to think of it as the energy with which we focus on healthy eating. For example, you can have a healthy desire to lose weight...if you focus on this desire to the exclusion of other, more important things, you can slip into anorexia nervosa, and you may not realize it until someone else points it out to you. Dr. Bratman's book is this "someone" shining the light on the psychological factors behind so-called "healthy obsessions".

This book was extremely helpful to me. I have previously followed various healthy diets, from vegetarian to vegan to raw foods, and struggled with balancing the many positives of such choices with some of the negatives. Health Food Junkies helped me to see myself more clearly, to see sort out my various psychological issues, and to put my desire to eat healthfully into balance. I think I'm making healthier choices overall with respect to my diet and my life in general.

There are many psychological factors to consider when eating healthfully, and some of the ones that Dr. Bratman covers are: control and safety issues, fears, idealized body images, using food as a primary source of spiritual satisfaction, food Puritanism, deprivation and self-punishment, creating an identity, being separate from others, hiding and escaping from life, and more.

Styles of eating which are covered are food allergies, raw foods, macrobiotics, the Zone, candida, "Eat Right for Your Type", vitamin pills, the beer and pizza diet, and several other extreme diets.

The author, Steven Bratman, M.D. speaks from experience, as he was previously a raw foodist and a macrobiotic eater, plus has helped patients recover from obsessions with healthful eating that in some cases has even cost them their lives, and often, their health. At a minimum, such an obsession costs one's emotional and spiritual well-being. He is absolutely totally in favor of eating well, but not at the expense of other parts of a healthy lifestyle.

This book will help you put your interest in healthful eating into balance. Even if you think it is in balance, it's good to read just to be aware of how things can get when you veer away, sometimes very gradually, from moderation. If you think moderation is a bad thing, you really, really should read this book. If you know someone whose eating obsessions are unusual, you'd find this interesting, too.
*****

I wish the authors would have concluded by saying that there are many different kinds of people who need many different kinds of diets, however, the authors don't do this. The author's suggestion that eating a toxic food like pizza, and sharing it with others, is better than eating healthy food by yourself is simply bad advice and contributed to our mass health problems in the U.S.Waking up the next morning after eating poor quality food, irritable and angry is not the answer. We need books which give people the courage and ability to eat healthily not rationalize eating pizza!

This is what I have come to expect from the majority of medical doctors: eat and drink lousy food and then come in for surgery, chemo, radiation and pharmaceuticals which make us lots of money. The two points the authors make which are valuable is that 1. you can go overboard in any diet you try, but this point is not new. 2. The authors do note the power of food allergy testing which is vastly underutilized

However, I would strongly suggest any book by Gabriel Cousens M.D. especially "Conscious Eating" and "Depression Free for Life, A Physician's All-Natural, 5-Step Plan" as much better advice getting you toward addressing root causes of health issues.

This is a must-read book for anyone who is considering adopting a special diet, and for anyone who has a friend or family member who has adopted a special diet. Before I read this book, I was adrift in the world of food allergies, veganism, and raw foodism and wondering why food gave me such anxiety. The book clearly delineates many reasons why people choose to adopt rigid eating- when I read through the profiles, I saw myself in every one of them! The author, himself a recovered orthorexic, describes many of the patients he has worked with. Even those with the strangest eating patterns are described compassionately. Dr. Bratman clearly understands the inner workings of this disorder. If you are a committed vegan, raw-foodist, or macrobiotic adherent and you are beginning to feel as if your diet is taking over your life, read this book! You may just put some joy back into your mealtime!

I'm going to have to agree that we simply cannot achieve optimum health by accounting quantitatively and qualitatively every nutrient we place in our body. Conversely, one should see thru the underlying agenda of this very misguided physician. He's attempting to remove the last bastion of control that the populace has over their individual health by creating a 'disease' with some psycho-babble jargon. The result would be to take back the billions of dollars lost by pharmaceutical companies to the natural-health movement. Having personally recovered from a disease thru elimination of processed foods, this issue is very personal to me.
I often wonder what terrific perks Dr. Bratman receives from these same pharmaceutical companies for serving as their propaganda machine. Be wary of a charlatan such as this gentlemen who's trying to medicalize your behavior and take away your personal freedoms. With that, I'm off to steam some broccoli and take a multivitamin.