Health Food Junkies: Orthorexia Nervosa - Overcoming the Obsession with Healthful Eating - Steven Bratman M.D. - Hardcover - 1 ED

Introduction Healing through nutrition is one of the pillars of alternative medicine. "Let your food be your medicine," the saying goes, and during my years of medical practice, patients have often begun their conversation with me by asking whether they can be cured through diet. I feel obliged to nod wisely. Although I am a conventionally trained M.D., I have been involved with alternative medicine since long before medical school, and a sacred reverence toward the healing power of diet is part of the job description of holistic physicians like myself. However, I am no longer the true believer in nutritional medicine I used to be. My own experience, as well as what I have seen happen to many of my patients, has affected me deeply. Too often I've seen the search for cure through diet become a disease worse than the original problem. This book is about that disease, which I have named orthorexia nervosa. If you do not suffer from orthorexia yourself, the odds are high that a friend of yours does. Do you know anyone who seems to think constantly about choosing healthy food, who proselytizes some dietary theory supposed to cure all illnesses, who acts superior to other mortals who don't worry so much about eating? Have you run across raw-foodists and macrobiotic followers, or people who talk about food allergies, candida, or eating right for your blood type? I'd be very surprised if you haven't. Fascination with healing diets is increasingly common. There have always been recommendations regarding the healthiest food to eat, but in recent decades the obsession over healthy eating seems to have escalated out of control. In more and more people it seems to be taking on the characteristics of an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia. However, unlike these other eating disorders, orthorexia disguises itself as a virtue. Anorexics may know they are harming themselves, but orthorexics feel nothing but pride at taking care of their health in the best possible way. I know how this feels, because I've been there myself. I've been at various times a raw-foodist, a total vegetarian, and a macrobiotic follower, and although I learned a lot from those experiences, it finally dawned on me that there is a dark side to dietary virtue. Similarly, as a holistic physician, I used to prescribe pure diets to my patients and only gradually came to understand that I wasn't necessarily doing them a favor. It's not that I don't support eating healthy food; it's only that when healthy eating becomes an obsession, it's no longer so healthy. The good news is that orthorexia is not as difficult to cure as alcoholism, heroin addiction, or anorexia. The first section of this book tries to help the health food junkie admit that he or she really has a problem. The next section turns to some of the most common dietary theories that instigate orthorexia and shows that they are not the first and last word on health. Its purpose is to weaken the grip those theories can have on one's mind. Finally, the third part of this book gives specific advice on how to overcome orthorexia and learn again how to eat without obsession. It really is possible! Section One Understanding ORTHOREXIA 1. What Is Orthorexia? Twenty years ago I was a wholehearted, impassioned advocate of healing through food. My optimism was unbounded as I set forth to cure myself and everyone else. This was long before I became an alternative physician. In those days I was a cook and organic farmer at a large commune in upstate New York. Like all communes in those days, ours attracted food idealists. I had to prepare several separate meals at once to satisBratman, Steven is the author of 'Health Food Junkies: Orthorexia Nervosa - Overcoming the Obsession with Healthful Eating - Steven Bratman M.D. - Hardcover - 1 ED' with ISBN 9780767906302 and ISBN 0767906306.