Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun psychology A fixation with healthy or righteous eating

Etymologies

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Examples

  • When proposing the term orthorexia, Bratman suggested framing a diagnosis around two direct questions:

    Darya Pino: Orthorexia, Bacon Worship And The Power Of Food Culture 2009

  • American physician Steven Bratman proposed the term orthorexia: "orth" (right and correct) + "orexia" (appetite).

    Tara Stiles: Orthoskepsis: When Too Much Thinking Is A Bad Thing 2009

  • Coined by Colorado physician Dr. Steven Bratman, the term orthorexia applies to people who obsess over eating healthy food.

    Lead Stories from AOL 2009

  • From Steven Bratman, M.D. who coined the term "orthorexia" to describe "an unhealthy obsession for healthy food."

    The Seattle Times 2011

  • While not officially recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, orthorexia is characterized by the same symptoms as anorexia and bulimia.

    Eating Disorders: Colleges Highlight Quiet Problem The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • Doctors are finding that an obsession with healthy eating can actually lead to an eating disorder called orthorexia nervosa.

    News Channel 9: Local News 2008

  • Peck believes that the new eating disorder related term "orthorexia," coined by Steven Bratman, a Colorado MD, falls into the category of disordered eating.

    Stories from The Sun 2009

  • Peck believes that the new eating disorder related term "orthorexia," coined by Steven Bratman, a Colorado MD, falls into the category of disordered eating.

    Stories from The Sun 2009

  • However sometimes people with anorexia and / or "orthorexia" also subscribe to a healthy diet such as the raw food diet.

    WordPress.com News 2008

  • I have a friend whose son has become so fixated on what foods he thinks he should or should not be eating that he could be a textbook case of "orthorexia nervosa," a supposed eating disorder characterized by an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.

    Kerry Trueman: Let's Ask Marion Nestle: Is it Possible to Have an Unhealthy Obsession With Healthy Eating? Kerry Trueman 2011

  • Orthorexia is an eating disorder where the sufferer has an extreme fixation with the “purity” of their foods or with rules-based eating to the extent that it’s harmful to their physical or mental health, sometimes to the degree that they lose too much weight, or retreat from public life.

    Unwanted Corkpull — Real Life Kelly Pendergrast 2023

  • Dr. Nagata has met with teenage boys who have fainted at the gym — sometimes suffering headaches, temporary blackouts and confusion — because they overexerted themselves lifting weights and had low energy because of a compulsion to count calories (a condition known as orthorexia).

    What Is ‘Bigorexia’? By 2022

  • But, of course, there is nothing healthy about diet culture, which encourages everything from orthorexia, or an obsession with “clean eating,” to other forms of disordered eating in its pursuit of thinness above all else.

    Stop Torturing Yourself With Quarantine Diets Amy McCarthy 2020

  • I did research on this relatively recent condition called orthorexia, which is a bout of extreme rule-following associated with wellness and contemporary health advice.

    “If you feel it is real, then it is”: Caroline Crampton on hypochondria Angela Chen 2024

  • Indeed, orthorexia nervosa, characterized by dietary restriction based on personal interpretation of food purity, might be added to the DSM-6 as a new eating disorder.

    Is Your Wellness Practice Just a Diet in Disguise? Condé Nast 2019

Comments

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  • do you suffer from this?

    December 12, 2006

  • nope!

    January 21, 2007

  • This is practically unknown in Scotland!

    January 21, 2007

  • "Did you know that there’s a clinical word for the “fixation on righteous eating�?? It’s called 'orthorexia.'"

    - Judith Warner, New York Times

    http://select.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/opinion/17warner.html

    March 17, 2007

  • More here.

    August 7, 2009