Orthorexia: when attention to food becomes a disease
Published on 5/11/2012
It really seems that food-related disorders and pathologies are without end. Throughout 2012 there has been much talk of "orthorexia", a term derived from the Greek words "orthos", correct, and "orexis", which means, precisely, appetite.
As today's la Repubblica describes, the term first appeared in the 1990s thanks to the American dietitian Steven Bratman, who published an article on the subject that immediately stirred up a sensation and interest.
Interest in the "purity of food" remains high and articles on the matter follow one another with some frequency: we cite the one that appeared in the Gazzetta dello Sport last April 13, which denounced the risks of excessive attention to food.
Marino Niola, writing in Repubblica, states that "by dint of eliminating foods, the diet is reduced to very few nutrients, with serious harm to health. It starts with the criminalization of butter. Hot on its heels comes the demonization of sugar. Then comes the fatwa on salt. [...] After which the taboos multiply in direct proportion to our fears and insecurities. Of which foods become the symbol, the catalyst, the scapegoat".
The author recalls the importance of addressing orthorexia as a genuine pathology, where the patient needs "twofold counseling: nutritional and psychological [...] What orthorexic subjects have in common is the condemnation of pleasure. And self-control transformed into a form of secular penance, a mortification of the body".
The Gazzetta dello Sport then offers two interesting insights by relating widespread eating behaviors such as buying organic and the Mediterranean diet to orthorexia. It cites an American study that would seem to debunk the existence of any difference in nutritional quality between organic products and "conventional" products; on the other hand, it takes aim at unquestioned faith in the Mediterranean diet as the supreme source of health, reporting a statistic that puts Italian children between the ages of 5 and 10 at the top of the European obesity rankings.