Being someone that enjoys eating, and who have used food to try and improve my health in the past, I’ve stumbled upon a new eating disorder, called Orthorexia Nervosa. It literally means ‘correct appetite’, and is characterized by an obsession with what the sufferer considers ‘healthy eating’. According to Shape Magazine ‘orthorexics want to feel pure or holy, but their relationship with food is equally neurotic’. The Bratman Test can be taken to find out whether a person suffers from the eating disorder. According to Wikipedia and Bratman, the two main questions a person needs to ask themselves is a) “Do you care more about the virtue of what you eat than the pleasure you receive from eating it?” And “Does your diet socially isolate you?”
So where do you draw the line between healthy eating and being obsessive? A few years ago I started eating extremely healthily in order to try and improve my health, as I suffer from Cystic Fibrosis. The only foods I was allowed to eat, according to the reflexologist who tested me for ‘food sensitivities’, was brown rice, a bit of chicken or fish, raw vegetables, and all fruit except grapes and citrus fruits, and nuts. This almost resulted in a food obsession for me. Not only having to plan your meals the whole time and trying to avoid social situations revolving around food, but fanacising about all the lovely foods you can’t eat. And when you DO ‘cheat’, you feel extremely guilty.
My story was much the same as Lynn, from Shape Magazine: “Lynn was a chronic asthmatic. She first cut out milk, then later, wheat and maize. Her asthma improved drastically, thereby also reducing her reliance on medication. She was hooked on her new “food therapy”. Next to go were other “allergens”, like meat and eggs. The demise of several vegetables and fruits followed, as she discovered additional “sensitivities”. Even eating a carrot became an issue, until eventually her diet was a complex rotation of only a couple of foods, with days of fasting to “clear” her system. Social butterfly Lynn now stays at home worrying about what to eat, because while the asthma hasn’t come back, headaches, nausea and “strange moods” have taken its place.”
The end result was that I lost 10kg, which was a lot, considering I was at my target weight to begin with. This resulted in my getting pneumonia, and losing some of my lung function forever. After that I just ate anything I wanted to, trying frantically to regain the weight, although I never fully succeeded.

So what should we eat? Everywhere you hear about people cutting out, carbs, meat, diary, processed foods, genetically modified food, sugar… It seems like every single food has a some kind of ‘bad side’. I think it’s time we returned to the wise saying ‘Everything in moderation’…