Who’s at risk for obsessive healthy eating? Toronto research sheds light
ctvnews.ca
ctvnews.ca
I have OCD, and hide it well. Looks like I have ON and have not hid it well at all. I run obsessively, eat extremely clean and have been struggling to even eat things that are outside my "normal" diet ever since the stress at work and relationships have increased.
I figured it was something I needed to research when I felt _bad_ for eating a sandwich after a 56 mile bike ride. But I never did, maybe because I didn't want to know the answer.
Oh well, the more you know...
My OCD has increased as well. They're definitely connected.
Edit: grammar and some spaces.
[1] https://sites.google.com/view/the-no-nonsense-guide/guide#h....
I'll give it a try. I realise I need to.
If you want to cure someone of anorexia, you will usually have more success if you both eliminate the excessive exercise and address the eating behaviour at the same time.
For some reason, it seems as if each behaviour somehow supports the other, and to break the cycle, you have to address both.
Also if you or anyone has an eating disorder, take it seriously and seek treatment. Eating disorders have the highest death rate of any mental disorder.
1: When researchers restrict rats’ food intake while giving them unlimited access to a wheel, the rats start running excessively. Paradoxically, these rats opt to continue running rather than eat during the short intervals of time food is made available to them. If allowed, they will literally run themselves to death. (https://www.verywellmind.com/excessive-exercise-eating-disor...)
Those rats ran themselves to death, will we humans? We share about 92% of the genes[0] (on the first google attempt), what changes does that giant 8% contain?
Just pick up people like me, and make us run and give us food.
I doubt we will object if it means there's a possibility that we might help ourselves.
Are they afraid they'll make it worse? Sure that's a possibility, but that's the price to pay. I'm willing to pay that price if it means people after me, who have this wire crossed in their brains will be served better healthcare in the future.
Some experiments might not work, but we've just discovered another way to _not_ make the lightbulb, but the good news is that the lightbulb _will_ be made if we try n times.
[0] https://blog.23andme.com/23andme-and-you/genetics-101/geneti...
It's not unethical to watch people run and eat -- Gatorade/UF exercise lab does this stuff all day long. Obviously it's unethical to let you continue to do so if adverse health effects are observed.
It's also unethical to let rats run themselves to death, and it wouldn't pass an ethics review board if you suggested an experiment like that these days.
Even if this information could help to understand better anorexia nervosa in humans.
Maybe we should do the experiment with running thumbleweed instead.
The average person in our society has decided that killing other humans is generally unethical, so it is. Most people have some sort of exception to that rule. Some people allow the death penalty for various crimes against their ethics (no universal truth of what is a crime exists). Some people allow for some area on the scale of where someone needs medical care for their cells to live. Some people allow killing before birth. Most people allow war in some part. I have my own opinions on the above, you do as well, but they are not the point. I'm sure we disagree on something.
In this case the study in rats provides an interesting hunch, that food restriction and excessive exercise seem linked.
Then you can certainly run a trial where you either eliminate exercise or not, and see if it makes a difference.
The goal of the experiment was to figure out what to feed holocaust survivors.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experim...
Last year I got serious about researching the biology of eating disorders, and I'm convinced now that in 40 years we'll think of anorexia and its cousins more like type I diabetes than a mental disorder.
For example: did you know that it's possible to induce self-starvation and hyperactivity (hallmarks of eating disorders) in mice [1]? It's been known to science since the 1950s, but this fact is curiously absent in popular understanding of eating disorders.
This new understanding led me to start a recovery project, and happily it's working out: I've finally got relief from the awful mental fixations (like those described in this article).
[1] https://relative-energy.tumblr.com/post/183390573416/activit...
Regarding "orthorexia nervosa", on the other hand, there is a perverse incentive in psychology to define everything under the sun as a disorder. I do not see right off the bat why this should not be thought of as being different from a specific manifestation of OCD.
"An analysis of many studies from Europe and North America revealed that rates of anorexia increased sharply until the 1970s, when they stabilized.Rates of bulimia increased during the 1980s and early 1990s, and they have since remained the same or decreased slightly."
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/toolkit/parent-toolk...
The same page show differences in anorexia rates between countries too.
No it isn't, the "Minnie Maud" model is dominant. (Minnesota, the soldier starvation experiment, and Maudsley, a protocol developed by a specialist London hospital).
Eating Disorder Maudsley Model: https://www.google.co.uk/search?ei=5k7cXIPmF9eO1fAPjZu_0AI&q...
Wikipedia has this for the Maudsley model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maudsley_family_therapy
These are the main two prongs of anorexia treatment: feed people (by force if necessary) but be careful to avoid re-feeding syndrome; provide family based therapy.
More recently there are moves to early intervention, which is safer, more effective, longer lasting, and cheaper. One model might be FREED. https://www.health.org.uk/improvement-projects/first-episode...
What I'd like to know is why this reaction isn't more common among humans. I'm a fat person who's tried calorie restriction and all it does is make me tired and depressed. I suspect there's a good reason for that, and it has a lot to do with why I'm a fat person in the first place.
You get the same effect without starving, just restricting carbs:
There're interesting stories about people changing their weight after a stool transplantation, without changing their diet.
The bacteria in the gut seems to have a deep impact how food is utilized, even which kind of food is preferred and how you feel eating it, but it also seems to work the other way around, that the food effects the kind of bacteria in the gut.
It makes perfect sense to work this way, on one side you prefer food you can better utilize, on the other your body is able to adapt to the available food.
So changing the bacteria eating different food should also be possible, but the change might be quite unpleasant, you certainly won't feel that well, it might take some time and you need quite a bit of will power to get through.
Edit: If you're interested, this talk[1] he gave at the Boston Science Museum is what made me read his book.
I needed an absurd long time to realize how food intolerances are increasing my anxiety and obsessiveness. I never had strong physical reactions shortly after the eating, but very subtile and delayed - sometimes even days later - reactions mostly on the mental level, which made it very hard to connect the food with the reactions.
That changed my thinking about certain kinds of mental disorders quite a bit.
It is easier to make hard restrictions for some time - one to two weeks - until all your symptoms are gone and than add one food after another to see if they introduce the symptoms.
Surely it's far more likely that the causation goes the other way? Or is there a hypothesis that trying vegetarianism promoted overthinking / overcaring about diet?
I suspect this isn't very specifically an eating disorder, but that it's an obsessive compulsive or zealotry disorder where food just happens to be a target.
1. Is there any reason why these researchers are focusing on an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating, instead of an unhealthy obsession with [x: x ∈ anything], or just unhealthy obsessions in general?
2. Are there enough people with this disorder to classify it as a disorder?
3. Why are "Lacto-vegetarians" at the highest risk? What is it about drinking milk that makes people want to be extremely healthy?
----
Answers I received after reading the link to the University Press Release:
1. It's basically a disorder for people whom are relapsing from a previous eating disorder. Although it's gender-neutral for some reason.
Interestingly, eating disorders and chronic semi-starvation lead to rigid, OCD-like behaviors. For me it was rituals around walking and movement - they have faded away during eating disorder recovery.
Science starts with data. If you want to prove a general theory, you show that it fits the simply-collected facts. You don't cook your experiment to prove your pet hypothesis.
There is a place for general obsession research, of course, but examining why people congregate around this one is obviously helpful to that goal anyway. What exactly about healthy eating makes it attractive to obsessive tendencies? The commonalities and differences compared to AN are surely going to be valuable.
We programmers like to abstract over things, but tons of good work in science involves just having a go at at one thing until it is better understood.
I think the researchers are imaging hardline discipline and re-structuring of normal dining affairs without any element of "obsession", even though the latter is probably required at some dosage to be effective, in the same way you obsess over, say, technology X when you need to be good at it.
For me, it wasn’t a rational choice at all - it was an anxiety response to food with a good justification (health) that people around me were willing to accept. In retrospect, I realize how much I was missing out on. Life’s much better now that foods something I can enjoy and now that eating can be a social experience.
There's of course room for middle ground. For example, I had a dinner I cared about, the host cooked lasagna, and I didn’t want to reject the host’s cooking or draw that kind of attention to myself. I know you can render your body in an insulin sensitive state if you do a muscle-glycogen depleting workout before, so I just did some weights after work and could enjoy the gathering guilt free.
Definitely about health span too, not just lifespan. Ie invest now so at 60 you feel like 40, and can pick up (great)grandkids let alone be able to tie your shoes in your 90s.
So the thought process you described is similar to orthorexia except the feeling of guilt is more powerful so it has a more powerful effect on behavior. For instance missing loved ones birthday's and avoiding go outing much at all in order to make sure you only eat the healthy food.
If you only eat good/clean when you are pushing yourself to eat clean, you are doing it wrong and eventually you'll give up and gain back all the weight. Inevitable.
Also, as someone that has very low bodyfat (6/8 pack for years), there is absolutely no need to eat clean 100% of the time.
I'd say that if you eat 90% cleanly of the time, you are golden.
There are ways to make your food delicious without adding huge amounts of calories (think of spices, etc.)
All it takes is some common sense, and some (very little) knowledge of nutrition to eat healthy. I would say that anyone can learn this, in less than a month.
Also, I suggest anyone (that hasn't done this) to count their calories for a month, and be meticulous about it - you will learn a lot. Afterwards, you will not have to count calories - your estimation will be good enough.
About the habits and "converting" to a better lifestyle? That I don't know. I don't understand why is it so hard for people. It seems like it is, even for people that know everything about it. That I can't explain.
That's not how orthorexia nervosa works. It's not an "obsession" in the colloquial way you're using the term but an actual pathological obsession. A diagnosable mental health condition. Your comment is incredibly insensitive (I hope because you only bothered to read the title) and is the equivalent of telling someone with a cold that there's no need to cough.
Not a fan of the way we are blowing things out of proportion so much these days.
Eating right is not that difficult. It's not difficult AT ALL. The mere fact that we are discussing this is insane, to me.
There was a point of time in history where civilizations routinely starved to death - THAT was difficult.
Having the most abundant choice, and voluntarily picking the wrong one, all the time, all day every day - I just can't sympathize with that and call it "difficult".
Especially if you know what you are doing. And you must know, cause you'd figure it out by the results pretty quickly. (Not you in particular, it's a general statement)
Am I missing something or isn't this putting the cart before the horse?
I was a vegetarian for a while because I found I felt better. This was probably a coincidence related to the meals I prepared being gluten-free.
“They also discovered that vegetarians and vegans were at higher risk.“ seems backwards - isn’t it more that hypertrexia makes one more likely to become a vegan or vegetarian?
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/is-orthorexia-a-real-eating...
These people are not eating healthily, they have an obsession with "healthy" food that interfere with their day to day life and causes harm or distress.
That harm may be from something like REDS (Anna Boniface has written useful stuff about that), or it may be over-training or food restrictions.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/personality-d...
https://www.crisiscareconcordat.org.uk/inspiration/meeting-t...
I think you've been unfairly downvoted. I don't think you're saying "people who have this label are annoying", I think you're saying "health care professionals who struggle with a patient are likely to say it's the patient's fault, because that patient has a PD".
Ah, so they would be better off eating junk food? That's actually what the authors of the studies suggest.