How can you distinguish between a person with 'orthorexia' and someone on a raw vegan lifestyle?!
Such followers are usually quite preoccupied and a tad obsessed with their diets. They adapt these complicated routines. So the question is how do you know if somebody is suffering from orthorexia or just 'being a health freak'.
The Definition of 'orthorexia' is just being all consumed in much the same way as an anorexic person is with regards to only eating healthy clean "pure" foods.
Answers:
The difference would be the state of mind. Orthorexia symptoms have been compared to an obsessive compulsive disorder. The suffer often has a set diet that is imposed on themselves based on exaggerated health concerns.
They will restrict their diet to the extreme, which can be brought to an unhealthy point. They are obsessed about the healthy aspect of what they choose to eat, and cannot deviate from it.
The obsession with food goes further than simply eating healthy. Orthorexics spend much of the time thinking about food. They spend countless time planning out what they eat, yet do not enjoy it.
While some veg*ns can be sufferers from Orthorexia, it does not mean that all people that eat healthy or have a restricted diet suffer from the illness.
There are many instances where someone could be suffering from the Orthorexia, and meat would be included in their diet. Someone may choose the atkins diet thinking all carbs are "unhealthy" and instead of limiting the carbs, they may eliminate them completely.
Some orthorexics are probably eating raw vegan due to their beliefs, but that doesn't mean that all vegans are orthorexic.
So I guess it could be hard to tell, or in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. Anyway, orthorexia is not an officially medically recognized disorder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthorexia_…
You are implying that all vegetarians and vegans have an unhealthy relationship with food. That is just not the case.
Orthorexia is more along the lines of obsessive compulsive disorder and should be asked in the Mental Health section.
Just because there are fundamentalists killing abortion doctors, does not make every Christian a doctor killer, right?
The difference is someone on a raw food diet without an underlying psychiatric pathology will be healthy.
Strikes me that you aren't vegan, otherwise you'd see that your question is so narrow minded.
It's like me asking if you, as a Catholic priest, prefer little girls or little boys, because it's wither one or the other.
If you care about food and are a vegan, why the hell not?
These days, there is pesticide, ammonia, chlorine and wax added to even apples, so if you want to take measures to regard your food the same as our grandmothers did, but get called out for it, then that's the fault of the fault-finder.
It's not up to me that companies fill their fruit, veg, food products with so much crap I don't want to eat them, but seeing as they do, I will shop for whole foods and feed my body the cleanest purest foods, which granny would have called plain "food" BTW, and dang anyone who thinks it's strange.
I myself find it VERY disturbing that a normal sane human can drive into a red plastic box, bark through a metal grill and pay money for stinking cow noses and fat globules and salt and high fructose corn syrup and then EAT it, and conside rthat normal.
So, you figure it out.
I'm not obsessed at all, I just know what I DON'T want to eat when I know it's crap junk food.
If that is all you see- someone being obsessed, then it seems you're a little obsessed with THEM.
WHat are YOUR eating habits?
What do YOU think about eating?
If you have to find fault with those people that actually give a **** about their health, there's a jealous thing going on with you.
PS Anorexics are not consumed with eating only healthy, clean, "pure" foods.
I know because I was anorexic 12-20. You know nothing, or at least a very small amount.
The asker isn't implying that all vegans have a mental disorder. They are asking how would you be able to tell the difference since there are so many people following strict dietary guidelines. The idea that ALL of them have orthorexia or that NONE of them have them would be unrealistic.
I would think the best way to tell would be their reasoning. If it's a purely moral reason then I would say it's not orthorexia. If they constantly are saying they can't eat something because it's "unclean" then it might be orthorexia. You might also be able to get clues from other parts of their lifestyle. For instance, are they also a "neat freak" on top of being a "health nut"