An increasing number of people are developing a dangerous obsession with “clean eating,” often driven by social media trends. Experts say this fixation can blur the line between healthy habits and disordered eating, putting mental and physical health at risk.
United States: With all the sudden popularity of fad diets, lots of protein-filled foods, and gadgets for tracking health stats, it’s simple to fall into the health-obsession trend.
More about the news
With so much advice on the internet and social media, it sometimes becomes hard to understand what your body really needs and what you can skip.
Many videos on social media suggest some foods are “bad” and use “fake ingredients,” only helping to increase people’s interest in healthy eating.
Healthy eating is helpful for your overall health, but there comes a point where it isn’t beneficial.
If you pay too much attention to healthy eating, it might turn into a problem called Orthorexia, which is found more often in our society today, and some studies reveal that social media also plays a big role in this.
There is no mention of Orthorexia in the DSM-5, even though two dietitians mentioned to HuffPost that it should eventually be considered a recognized diagnosis.
According to Beth Auguste, a maternal wellness dietitian in Philadelphia, “It’s subclinical disordered eating, so it’s not something that has a clinical diagnosis code, but it’s widely recognized in the disordered eating community,” huffpost.com reported.
″[Orthorexia] can be generally categorized as a preoccupation with healthy eating and a fixation on the purity of food,” as Auguste added.
“It’s an obsession with what someone perceives as the proper way of eating, or the healthy way of eating,” as per Beth Heise, who is a registered dietitian with OnPoint Nutrition.
Since many people choose healthy foods to protect their health or keep their cholesterol and blood sugar in control, it’s sometimes not easy to identify which diet is safe and which is not.