The Dangers of "Healthy" Eating

We are becoming a nation of orthorexics.

What is "orthorexia"?  It is a proposed new eating disorder, identified in the late 1990's, and consists of an obsession with eating healthy foods and systematically eschewing unhealthy ones.

You might wonder why this behavior would be characterized as an eating disorder.  Isn't that what we're supposed to do...eat the healthy stuff and avoid the junk?

Well, yes.  But the problem is, we are obtaining information about healthy living from questionable sources.  We are not talking to our doctors, registered dieticians, or even trained para-professionals about the matter.  Instead, we are glomming on to the latest article in the Huffington Post ("their journalists seem pretty competent"), the signage at the specialized grocer ("the bakery said the sugar they use isn't one of those bad sugars"), or the buff guy at the gym ("Franz said not to eat fruit and just to focus exclusively on animal protein").

In the eighties many people attempted to cut out ALL fat.  We now have sects of self-proclaimed health-oriented people cutting out ALL animal protein and animal by-products, or cutting out ALL starches, or cutting out ALL fruit.

How about this...when you see the word ALL used in a negatively dogmatic way in a dietary regimen, why not put on your critical thinking cap, call your MD personally, or set up a consultation with a respected registered dietician?  You know, just in case that otherwise compelling regimen is based on fuzzy science and is potentially dangerous....

We have begun to look askance at anything the traditional medical or food service establishment recommends, convinced that there is a complicated web linking killer foods and big pharma in a dastardly conspiracy of profitability at the expense of human health and life. 

If there is any conspiracy, it's actually to keep you HEALTHY.

If you, or your lower income friends, get sick with a preventable food-related disease you actually cost the establishment money.  This is why public health officials are veritably freaking out about the obesity epidemic.  It's expensive on many, many levels and it will have a very real impact on our economic system in the future.

This (uncharacteristic, I hope) rant was brought on by a British article I stumbled upon regarding naturopathic diet therapists.   Apparently, anyone can hang out a shingle proclaiming themselves an expert.  This has had deadly results in some cases.  Read about it here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2103988/The-nutrition-therapists-health-risk.html

We might gloss over such an article and think that we'd be wiser, that we know better.  But we don't.  We are forever coming up with new fears and new rules about entire categories of food.  There are plenty of people out there who SHOULD be making restricted choices and sweeping dietary changes, but those people likely have been advised by a professional.

I encourage everyone to explore new ways of eating.  It can be invigorating and interesting and indeed helping people explore new ways of  eating has been my livelihood.  But I encourage everyone to exercise critical thinking and use a respected medical  or dietetic expert as a resource.