What is Orthorexia Nervosa?

Orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating to the point of damaging their well-being. The focus is on quality, not the quantity of food, the purity of food, and it’s health benefits. While the end goal of orthorexia is not to lose weight, one risk factor is a past or current eating disorder.

Renae Nicole
7 min readNov 8, 2022

Definition

Healthline

Orthorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that involves an obsession with healthy eating and optimal nutrition.

WebMD

An eating disorder that makes you obsessed with eating only unprocessed, organic, or other “pure”foods.

NEDA

The term ‘orthorexia’ was coined in 1998 and means an obsession with proper or ‘healthful’ eating. Although being aware of and concerned with the nutritional quality of the food you eat isn’t a problem in and of itself, people with orthorexia become so fixated on so-called ‘healthy eating’ that they actually damage their own well-being.

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Orthorexia is an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating to the point of damaging their well-being. The focus is on…

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Renae Nicole

Certified Personal Trainer | Health Coach | Nutrition Coach | Worldview: Christianity