Orthorexia
Receive nutritional counselling, support and strategies from an experienced dietitian and nutritionist for orthorexia to help manage its complexity and aid in the recovery process.
Before we delve into how an orthorexia dietitian and nutritionist can help manage the associated symptoms, it’s important to outline what orthorexia is.
What is orthorexia?
According to National Eating Disorders Association,
The term orthorexia was originally coined in 1997, and means an obsession with proper, healthy, or clean eating. Although not formally recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual DSM-5 as an eating disorder, and thereby, in the absence of formal diagnostic criteria, awareness about orthorexia is on the rise.
Is orthorexia an eating disorder?
It is uncertain whether orthorexia is a stand-alone eating disorder such as anorexia. Some folks may transition into orthorexia from more severe anorexia nervosa as they progress in recovery. Orthorexia may also co-occur with other mental health challenges, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Orthorexia: associated risks
While striving to eat health-promoting foods sounds appropriate and beneficial for most, extensive preoccupation, rigidity and obsession with ensuring each bite is optimal can pose challenges in an individual’s functioning.
When remaining faithful to an eating protocol means turning down social engagements, foregoing on going to an all-exclusive resort or refusing to take part in a workplace potluck, can be damaging to one’s socialization practices.
Depending on the extent and rigidity of self-imposed eating habits, affected individuals may become malnourished, showing evidence of nutritional deficiency and caloric deficit.
What are the signs and symptoms of orthorexia?
Our registered dietitian and nutritionist for orthorexia has compiled a list of the signs and symptoms.
- Compulsive checking of nutritional labels and ingredients.
- Curating social media access to increase exposure to “healthful” eating practices.
- Spending countless hours thinking about foods, including planning and preparing meals or snacks.
- Increased concern about health risks associated with various ingredients.
- Restricting an increasing number of foods due to health concerns (meat, dairy, gluten, non-organic foods, etc.).
- Developing a strict hierarchy of “safe” and “unsafe” foods; at times based on arbitrary classification criteria around food acceptability.
- A sense of superiority and uniqueness around eating patterns, spiced with perfectionistic tendencies.
- Showing distress when access to “safe and healthy” foods is restricted/denied.
- Body image, weight and compulsive exercising habits may or may not be present.
- Impairment in psychosocial functioning may or may not be present.
How Can a Dietitian and Nutritionist for Orthorexia Help
A registered dietitian for orthorexia can potentially help in the following ways:
- Help examine your current relationship with food.
- Map out health assumptions about the properties of various food groups and food ingredients.
- Gradually re-introduce “unsafe or unhealthy” foods through exposure therapy, thereby diversifying food choices.
- Dispel various common myths around food.
- Help learn to trust self with hunger and fullness cues, thereby consistently meeting nutritional requirements.
- Take stock of the impact of dietary rigidity on psychosocial functioning.
- Explore and expanding self-care practices above and beyond nutrition.
- Focus on body image work to ease into self-acceptance and self-trust.
- Receive ongoing support of an eating disorder dietitian, if desired.
- Work with a sports nutritionist to help balance your athletic needs and goals with a healthy relationship with body and food.
- Receive the counsel of a pediatric nutritionist or a nutritionist who works with teenagers.
In addition to working with an orthorexia dietitian and nutritionist, it is also important to consider other professional help.
Professional help other than an orthorexia dietitian and nutritionist to help with management:
- Multidisciplinary team approach, including medical professional and mental health professional often necessary to address the complexity of orthorexia.
- Orthorexia is often addressed as an eating disorder, particularly anorexia and/or OCD.
Related Services
Contact us for a no-obligation phone consultation during which we can:
✓ outline how working with a nutritionist and dietitian looks like
✓ discuss your needs and goal(s)
✓ explain how billing and pricing work
✓ address concerns about insurance, if any
✓ answer any other questions
Orthorexia Dietitian & Nutritionist In-Person & Virtual
Receive nutritional counselling sessions with a dietitian and nutritionist for orthorexia in-person or virtually. You can book an in-person appointment with a dietitian in Toronto.
You can also work virtually with a dietitian and nutritionist.