Are We Orthorexic?

Food bloggers promoting “clean eating” are helping to fuel a rise in “orthorexia”, an obsession with eating food that one considers healthy.

16:49 13 June 2016

Several food bloggers in social networking sites with no medical qualifications are peddling clean-eating diets, helping to fuel a rise in orthorexia in young teenage girls.

 

Fiona Hunger, a qualified consultant nutritionist, said that having access to unqualified advise via social media provides young women with unhealthy food relationships with means to hide their real issue behind a new language of “healthy” or “clean” eating.

 

"There's so many people out there without the appropriate qualifications, pretty and slim wellness bloggers who have thousands of Instagram followers who hang onto their every word, who are giving advice based on no evidence at all,"

 

"There's a real concern that this helps young women mask an underlying eating disorder. It's more acceptable to say 'I don't eat gluten' than to say 'I don't want to eat that cake.'"

 

She added: "Any restrictive diet that cuts out a major food group, like dairy products or carboydrates, means you run the risk of nutritional deficiencies.”

 

"So you could feel absolutely fine now but there are real dangers later on in life where you've caused damage to your body."