Most of âdieting cultureâ is actually deeply rooted in orthorexia, an obsession with only eating âpureâ and âhealthyâ foods in controlled amounts.  Itâs currently not classed as an eating disorder in itself, but rather a symptom of disordered eating behavior that goes hand in hand with anorexia or bulimia.Â
Itâs an obsession with eating only âthe right foodsâ or a perception of âhealthy, pure foodsâ and having âcleanseâ days and âdetoxingâ when you slip up and eat either the wrong food or too much of something. Now, tell me that doesnât sound like something you might read under Cosmoâs âtop ten tips to lose belly fat for summerâ, or hell, literally any health vlogger on youtube with thousands of subscribers claiming they cured their depression/cancer by doing the banana cleanse, which yes, is actually a real thing. Donât do it. Please. Love yourselves. Â
A UK based study (canât find it right now but I will add it in if I can) on eating disorders noted that those most likely to suffer from the symptoms of orthorexia are people who think they are âjust dietingâ or trying to be really healthy by following popular âpureâ food movements like veganism and paleo, but to unhealthy extremes. Usually because theyâve been suckered in by popular food vloggers who argue violently against the validity of the term, or the notion you can ever eat âtoo healthilyâ, despite the term being coined by Dr Steven Bratman back in 1996, a physician well known for being an advocate for safe, alternative medicines and therapies for better healthâso not just a âwestern physicianâ ragging on âpure alternativesâ like a lot of these diet frauds claim.
Eating healthily is not about deprivation. The human body needs fat, it needs carbohydrates, it needs salt, and a whole host of other things people will try to convince you you need to eat 0 of, in order to be healthy.Â
Most of you know I got super sick at the start of the year from an horrendous virus that meant I couldnât eat solids for almost six weeks, I lost a lot of weight very quickly, over 20lbs. And while Iâve managed to gain some of that back as Iâve gradually been able to increase my food intake (I am now up to roughly 1200 calories a day which is still too low for my size and age, but much better than the 200 I was living on for over a month) Iâm still suffering the side effects of being forced to eat nothing but organic oatmeal and bone broth for all those weeks, including but not limited to hair loss, broken nails, skin that looks like absolute shit, and not to even mention the mental and physical fatigue Iâm still suffering from over six months later.Â
And donât get me wrong, I was eating healthy foods, I was enduring the âdetoxâ dream so many magazines and health vloggers rave about. But the truth of it is, healthy humans arenât made to live on those things alone, (and thatâs not actually how the body detoxes itself, but thatâs another rant for another time)âregardless of how healthy those things are.Â
Fuck these disordered ideas of societal norms. You can be healthy and happy and worthy, without being thin.
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