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Week 10 [16.12 - 22.12.2019] - Do you pay abnormal attention to the quality of food you consume everyday?



It’s a well-known fact that drastic eating habits can destroy our organisms very easily and quickly. We all know anorexia – eating disorder brought about by excessive dieting and striving for a slim body, but have you ever heard about orthorexia? This apparently harmless-looking disease, in fact can cause very serious health problems. The dieting trap starts with cutting down on unheathly food stuffs and replacing them by whole-food. In proces of time the victims start to pay abnormal attention to the quailty of food, their minds are affected with desire to lead super-healthy life styles and be satisfied with pro-ecological daily eating habits. They become obsessive about eating only healthy and „safe” products, due to this people who suffer from orthorexia reject from their daily diet every single product, which they consider as processed and harmful. Following that more and more rigorous diet gets them to the point, where they only accept few good, eco-products in their diet. Every other food, which seemed for them to be „bad”, harmfull and processed has been eliminated. 

There are a few symptoms and warning signs of orthorexia:
·       People, who suffer from orthorexia spend hours on thinking about food;
·       They really carefully plan their daily-menu and shopping lists;
·       Ill people check on nutritional labels and lists of ingredients of each product;
·       Very often they look down on people who don’t pay attention to their diet;
·       A warning sign i salso following many „healthy lifestyle” bloggers and social media;
·       People affected with the disease don’t like to eat out, however if they are forced to do so and they finally settle on eating in the restaurant they ask the waiter/waitress about the whole, exact list of ingredients contained in the meal.


Of course there is nothing wrong about being aware of healthy and harmfull ingerdients or good and bad eating habits or just leading a healthy lifestyle and look out for processed food and maybe avoid them in daily diet. However orthorexia can have disastrous consequences. Victims ruin their health instead of improving it. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies infuence on develop of serious disorders, such as: anaemia, hypertension, osteoporosis or even cancer.  So there is the rub: it’s all about keeping sanity and temperance. In contemporary society each year hundreds of new, groundbreaking diets are created, some of them are good, simple and can positively impact our health, but others may be really destructive for both – mental and physical health. However there is one certain thing: there is no diet which will solve our low-selfesteem problem, being slim and eating healthy will not make you happy if you are not able to fully accept yourself. To feel good we have to like our own personality our adventages and disadventages, otherwise it’s very likely we will fall into one of dieting traps.
 Questions:
1.  Why in your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?
2.  Do you pay high attention to the quailty of food you consume? And if yes, then: do you eat whole-food all the time or you treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?
3.   In was sense can dieting be dangerous? What other „dieting traps” do you know?

Sources:


Comments

Dawid Piotrak said…
1. Why in your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?
In my opinion it might be due to social media and spreading some popular and not healthy ideologies related to food.

2. Do you pay high attention to the quality of food you consume? And if yes, then: do you eat whole-food all the time or you treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?

From my perspective only the number of total consumed calories and proteins is important.
It doesn't matter if you eat something considered as unhealthy as long as the numbers are met.

3. In was sense can dieting be dangerous? What other „dieting traps” do you know?
I believe that most people are not educated in this manner and without proper knowledge can harm themselves usually during the attempt to lose some weight and applying some stupid diet's with extremely low calories spartan-like or some other crazy ideologies.
1. It’s hard for me to form an opinion, because I personally don’t know any people who suffer from orthorexia. I assume that people are just more conscious about the impact of low-quality food on our health. I think that it is reasonable, because the quality of our “everyday” food is just terrible. We all know about “refurbished” meat, but fruits and vegetables are no better. Food companies will do everything to make it cheaper.

2. Unfortunately, I don’t pay attention to the quality of food I consume. I am that kind of person who can eat everything in every quantity and still be thin. Maybe at the moment of death from cancer, I’ll regret every single kebab I had… I like to choose fancy, craft beers instead of those popular ones, but I guess it doesn’t count 😊

3. I am totally unfamiliar with this topic. The only thing which comes to my mind is veganism and forcing children, or pets to follow it.
People are very interesting creatures, because when they have everything, they search for a problem by force and, unfortunately, follow the leprosy that is easy to create. In this way, people can easily code for blinds such as orthorrection. Orthorexia is a mental illness in my opinion!
I try not to eat too much, but I don't count, and I'm not going to count calories. If I feel like pizza, I go to pizza, if I feel like eating McDonald's, I eat there. There is nothing wrong with fulfilling your eating cravings.
The diet itself is a very nice phenomenon of planning your food. Unfortunately, people wanting to lose weight take a lot of weight loss tablets, stop eating completely or eat a lot at the end of the day because they haven't eaten all day. Oh and veganism is something totaly irrational :P
Maciej P s16488 said…
I have no idea why. This is first time i've heard about it.
I don't. Actually sometimes it is my problem that i don't pay much attention to what i eat. At the moment i am trying to eat more healthy but i do it by ordering box-diet which makes me give totally 0 attention to what i eat, as i just get what they send me.
I think that extensive dieting can lead to malnutrition. Sometimes some genetic conditions can lead to problems on some kinds of diets.
In my opinion more and more people suffer from orthorexia because of excess of mass media, advertising, information about how to be really healthy and all this bullshit. I don’t pay high attention to the quality of food, I just eat food after I’m sure I won’t be feeling sick. Of course sometimes I neglect this and later regret but no one saint, xexe. I think dieting is useful for people who really has a problem with overweight or for sportsman who has to eat properly to keep with training and shape their body or supply enough to improve abilities/skills.
Karol Michalak said…
1. Why in your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?
No idea, never heard of this before, but it looks like and addiction, addiction to eating healthy and nowadays it is too easy to fall for any addiction, even one that sound beneficial at the beginning.

2. Do you pay high attention to the quailty of food you consume? And if yes, then: do you eat whole-food all the time or you treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?
I try to select a better product based on the label but I don't have time and money to be an eating racist of some kind. I buy what I can afford and what I like. Sometime my apetite directs me to more healthy things but that's all.

3. In was sense can dieting be dangerous? What other „dieting traps” do you know?
Yes, every diet without thinking is dangerous, and every diet can be a trap if you do so called cheat days, as they can ruin your body in more restricful ones.
Szymon Kluczek said…
Dawid, thank you for your comment. You can be right, maybe the problem with orthorexia come from little knowledge and lot of false information on the internet.
Szymon Kluczek said…
Well, if you can eat everything you want, even lots of unhealthy products and stay in shape in the same time, you are the lucky one then! But remember it's not about being slim, highly processed foods consumed in huge quantity can have harmful infuence on your health in the future.
Anyway thank for your opinion on the topic!
Szymon Kluczek said…
I couldn't agree more! Balanced daily diet is the best option. It's okay to have a snack like McDonald's or pizza or something sweet, if you normally watch your diet and don't go for such foods too often.
I'm glad you shared your opinion :)
Szymon Kluczek said…
Thank you for your comment. Box-diet seems to be very resonable solution in that case. I think it's very convenient, you don't have to plan your meals and cook, but dietary catering takes care of the quality of food you consume.
Szymon Kluczek said…
You are absolutely right. The fact that some diet is about eating healthy and improving your daily eating habits, just like it's in the case of orthorexia, can be really misleading and let our guard down. Little do people know how quickly leading that "healthy lifestyle" can become an obssesion, which they won't be able to control anymore.
Thank you for your comment:)
Szymon Kluczek said…
Oleksandr your point of view on the topic of being on the diet makes sense. As you said "dieting" is not for everyone, it's intended for people who really need it for a reason. Your approach is very rational actually. Unfortunatelly lots of people decide to go on a rigorous diet, although they don't need to lose weight.
Thank you for sharing your opinion.
1. I believe that the main reason for that is wanting to be trendy and shine in social media. Some time ago, there was a huge movement promoting Eco food and spreading misinformation about food with GMO.

2. To be honest I eat what I feel like, I try not to limit myself and do not follow what the mass media say. I owe a lot to good metabolism, which I hope will stay as long as possible. If it wasn't for it I would probably be a rolling ball :D

3. Multiple people don't know how to diet properly, they tend to cut meals and starve themselves, which is very dangerous for their health. Before beginning a diet person should visit a specialist or at least gather some information before starting it. Wrongly picked diet can ruin someones health.
Anton Chechel said…
1. Why in your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?
I think it happening, because people are intimidated by media, where they are constantly being told what horrible foods are now and in what conditions they are being produced. Well, we can add that the development of technology has reached such level that the products are almost no longer grown/manufactured without the involvement of the chemical industry, which does not have a very good effect on human health. So we can't say that orthorexia is something bad. The main thing is not to overdo with it.
2. Do you pay high attention to the quailty of the food you consume? And if yes, then: do you eat whole foods all the time or treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?
I cannot say that I am obsessed with quality products, but I try to choose what I think had less chemical effect. However, if the product of this type is only one and not of the highest quality, but I will need it, then I will not go to the other end of the city just because I do not like anything there. And in general, I like to indulge myself from time to time with 21st century food.
3. In was sense can dieting be dangerous? What other dieting traps do you know?
Dieting is dangerous at least because no one is following a balanced diet. When dieting, you think that eliminating all foods from a ration and leaving only water will help you lose weight quickly. When dieting, you think that eliminating all foods from a ration and leaving only water will help you lose weight quickly. For a successful diet you do not have to change your ration in any way. You just have to reduce the number of certain foods and to play sport. As for other "dieting traps", I know anorexia. For some reason, everyone wants to be thinner than a skeleton. I don't know where this trend came from, but it scares me
Bartosz Waś said…
1. I think more and more people suffer from orthorexia because healthy food and lifestyle gets more and more popular each year. We are bombarded by new information about new diets and products that after research appeared to be harmful to our health. Now days because of mass production and a need to deliver tones of food to consumer the quality of products usually turns out to be terrible. Food is filled with chemicals and it is extremely hard to find really healthy alternatives. People are way more aware of what they eat and when they find out how bad is the quality of their food they may get obsessed about finding and eating only the right products.

2. There was a time when I didn't pay any attention to the quality of food I was eating. That changed after a time because I started training more intensively and I started to feel how my diet affects my daily performance and mood. Sine then I have been trying to keep a healthy lifestyle but I am not obsessed with that. I am still a fan of fast-food and all sorts of unhealthy food so I make an exception from time to time.

3. When someone doesn't know a lot about nutrition then by using restrictive diets can make more harm to the organism than good by cutting too much of specific elements.
Many people don't know that the best diet is a simple balanced died that contains all required elements from good quality ingredients. Such died should not be too restrictive at the beginning and create good eating habits that after a time starts to be natural and not painful to keep. There are many diet traps for example low-carb diets that turned out to be ineffective after research.
Yurii Gevtsi said…
1. Why in your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?
Not so long ago there was a topic on whether people are getting dumber. It seems to me that this may perfectly fit the description of this reason.

2. Do you pay high attention to the quailty of food you consume? And if yes, then: do you eat whole-food all the time or you treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?
Taking into account the ecological state and the growing number of cancer diseases, I try to pay attention to my health and nutrition. But to be crazy about this is already too much. I try to balance my nutrition, but I don’t push myself forcefully with vegetables, and if I want a piece of fried meat or kebabs or chips, damn it, I’ll go and buy them and the world won't collapse.
3. In was sense can dieting be dangerous? What other „dieting traps” do you know?
There are frequent cases when people who ate only raw food became infected with worms in the brain and some died of it.
1. It is nothing weird that people in general are concerned about their health and try to eat nutritious food. Due to omnipresent news about the necessity of eating healthy some of the people became to obsessed about it. The only thing they can think about is health, nutritious food, calories and training.

2. In a way, yes. I often read labels to avoid unnecessary preservatives in my diet. In my case, I try to eat as little processed food as possible rather than just healthy.

3. What the word “diet” actually means is simply to plan the meals during the day. It can be both healthy and unhealthy. If I eat fast food every day, it will also be a form of a diet.
Szymon Kluczek said…
Piotr Thank you for your comment. I think that your idea of eating as little processed food as it's possible it's a great way to eat healthy and stay fit, without too much effort.
Szymon Kluczek said…
You're absolutely right. If you maintain moderation, eating something unhealthy from time to time won't ruin your well-being. Balance is the most important factor in our lives.
Szymon Kluczek said…
You're absolutely right. If you maintain moderation, eating something unhealthy from time to time won't ruin your well-being. Balance is the most important factor in our lives.
Szymon Kluczek said…
I couldn't agree more. In this case ignorance and little knowledge about dieting can be very harmful for us. Diet if it's not appropriate can do us worng, instead of improving our health and shape.
Thanks for sharing your opinion!
Maciej Szczypek said…
1. Why in your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?
I think that nowadays the food industry is paying more attention to the quantity instead of the quality. Many products contain artificial colorants, preservatives and flavour-boosting chemicals, not to mention how many vegetables and fruits are genetically modified. We are more and more aware of the dangerous impact that this can have on our health, thanks to the internet and television, and some people take the healthy eating to the extreme.

2. Do you pay high attention to the quailty of food you consume? And if yes, then: do you eat whole-food all the time or you treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?
Usually I do not pay that much attention to the quality of the food that I eat. Quite often I order take-outs and I rely more on the flavour of the food that whether it is healthy or made from high-quality ingredients. Lately I tried to cut back on meat as I felt like I was eating too much of it and felt rather heavy.

3. In was sense can dieting be dangerous? What other „dieting traps” do you know?
In my opinion dieting can be dangerous if taken to the extreme. People tend to forget that they should listen to their bodies first and see what makes them feel healthier, lighter, more energetic etc. Nowadays, there is a lot of popular new diets like keto, paleo or raw diet, but I think people should consult dieticians before changing their eating pattern so drastically.
Szymon Kluczek said…
I have to admit I'm really impressed with your rational approach to the topic. If only more people had at least small knowledge about leading healthy lifestyle, maybe there weren't so much nutrition related diseases in this world.
Thank you for your comment:)
Szymon Kluczek said…
I couldn't agree more. People should be educated more about the nutrition, especially if they want to go on a diet, otherwise improperly picked diet can be very harmful.
Angelika Dutt said…
In my opinion, more and more people are suffering from ortorexia because of what culture is promoted in the media. After the fast food era, it is time for a "healthier" lifestyle, which very often turns into obsessions. Everyone wants to look like sports stars on the instagram and forget that it is impossible to look like that without the help of photoshop.

I pay a lot of attention to the quality of the food I eat, but I try not to overdo it. In my opinion it is necessary to keep the balance in life and this is healthier than the healthiest food. I had the beginning of orthorectory, and luckily, I noticed at the time that I was starting to behave badly. I used to call off meetings with friends because I didn't want to eat unhealthy food in the city, and at Christmas I was losing Christmas magic thinking about how much sugar is in the cake.

Maintaining a healthy diet is good, but not 100%. I think it's worth following the 80/20 rule, i.e. 80% of our food is healthy and 20% is spent on pleasures and cravings. I've mentioned the diet traps above. In my opinion, it is important to remember that food is only an addition and not the meaning of life.
Mykyta Smirnov said…
1. Why in your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?
I haven't heard about it. Maybe modern people are not so mentally healthy and can be easily influenced by other so they get such deseases.

2. Do you pay high attention to the quailty of food you consume? And if yes, then: do you eat whole-food all the time or you treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?
I have some problems with my stomach so I have to. But I also cannot resist eating junk food periodically.

3. In was sense can dieting be dangerous? What other „dieting traps” do you know?
Every diet might be dangerous if you are not prepared for it. You should attempt them them wisely.
1. I think that unfortunately it goes with increasing awareness of some particular knowledge. In the internet age access to different kind of informations is extremely simple but still not everybody knows how to use it properly. This unsorted knowledge and information overload goes with creating a lot of chaos and phobias. I don't suggest cutting people off from informations generally but not everybody checks sources properly which leads to misunderstandings. Also many people are scared of things new to them. (I still can remember when in primary school on biology lessons almost all class had this phobia when they find out about mites living on their entire body) I guess it can be some of the reason why we can observe increase of orthorexia.

2. I often suffer on lack of appetite which causes me even forgetting to eat anything at all for entire day. It happens much more often than it should. When I actually already feel like eating at all I kinda just eat things that I like. It's extreamly unhealthy and I know it well. I'm trying to do something with it one step at the time but it's uneasy.

3. There are many different diets as far as I know. And from articles that I've been reading in most cases it resulted in some negative effects. Most related to limited absorption of individual nutrients. A poor diet can lead to even internal organ dysfunctions that is why it's very dangerous to change your diet entirely without detailed knowledge.
Vitalii Ohol said…
1. I can't say a lot about this question, mostly because, till this article, I wasn't even aware of such a phenomenon as orthorexia. But I think some people painstakingly choose music or electronic gadgets or instruments or clothing, so it's not very different from food (but unlike everything else that I listed, no one writes from which ingredients each meal cooked).

2. I don't pay attention to the quality of the food. I'm just eating whatever I like. I don't tend to ride 20 km from home to buy ingredients from a person that I trust. But I tend to ride 10 km from home to buy pancakes from a place that I like. And I like unhealthy food, but I try to balance it with healthy food, to not be fat.

3. Diets very dangerous, especially if you take it from the internet, your friends, family, or other people. People must understand that diets are very personal and can be applied only to specific persons. Diet must be created by an especially educated person, who knows you, your body, and your activities, to create a diet that will cover all your food needs and balance your ration.
1. It seems to me that more and more people are suffering from orthorexia because giving up harmful and processed foods seems like a good idea. In fact, it is. But in everything you need to know the measure and do not forget about common sense.

2. I pay attention to what I eat. When I buy products, I look at the composition to find out if there are dyes or harmful chemical additives. I don't eat only whole-food, as my body will not have enough vitamins, which are in other products.

3. I think dieting is dangerous when you're not getting the right amount of vitamins or not getting them at all. To such diets, I can refer "color diet". According to this diet, you should eat products of the same color. For example, on Monday only red products, on Tuesday green products and so on. I think it's obvious that this way, the body doesn't get the right vitamins.
Mykola Suprun said…
1) The worst of all, evils - the ignorance. It is hard to blame someone for that, though. Healthy eating is a hard topic for modern science. It is extremely hard to get reliable data or do a well-controlled experiment on long term results of the consumption of certain food. And the food industry doesn't have enough money to fund such research. Because of this, we have a situation when science falls short, and cult-like ideologies became popular.
2)The whole division on "healthy" and "unhealthy" food is arbitrary and honestly always seemed to me as somewhat absurd. But being a long-time martial arts practitioner, I still have to watch out for my dietary intake of the nutrients during the day. Luckily enough, although there is a lot of contention on how exactly do it right, there seems to be a reasonable consensus on how to not do it. And there is a lot of software that makes this process very easy.
3)In the same sense as ignorance applied to the health-related choices can be dangerous. It always is better to first consult with your doctor before making any drastic decisions concerning your diet.
Jakub Kisiała said…
There is a lot of talk today about veganism and healthy eating. There is television everywhere in which we watch beautiful bodies in exchange with programs about products that cause cancer. It all adds up to a lot of attention to the diet. I personally choose rather unprocessed products but I do not pay much attention to their method of production.
1. Why is your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?

I think it is because more and more people are interested in what they are eating. What ingredients there is and is it a natural or chemical one. I think, it is caused from the big boom of quick, unhealthy and chemical food, which we can buy in shops or try in restaurants and all the problems, which are caused because of this food.

2. Do you pay high attention to the quality of the food you consume? And if yes, then: do you eat whole-food all the time or you treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?

I sometimes treat myself and eat something unhealthy, but overall I am trying to eat high-quality food. It is important for me, which food I am eating, which ingredients are used and how it is prepared.

3. In was sense can dieting be dangerous? What other „dieting traps” do you know?

I think all diets should be consulted with the doctor. It is the only possible way to eat without harming yourself. I heard a lot, about diet, which helped one person, but destroyed the health of another person.
Adam Tokarczyk said…
1. I think that the cause of more and more people suffering from orthorexia is society. People are bombarded from every side with content telling them what is 'good', including body shape, and what they need to do to accomplish that. Young minds are very prone, so hearing about 'bad foods' shapes them into blindy following trends like zombies. And if the trend is to eat whole-foods many will take it to extreme, which may lead to orthorexia.
2. I think that I pay normal attention to the quality of food I consume. I don't buy 'bio' or 'eco' products, because mostly it's a scam to earn money from people who can't rationally think on their own. If we eat with brain, then there's really nothing to be afraid of in normal or even 'unhealthy' food.
3. Dieting can be dangerous in every sense, it can affect somebody day, mood, mind and people around. A lot of cases of anorexia starts with a diet. Dieting groups are quite popular dieting trap. It's suppose to gather people who want to lose weight and 'guide' them through that proces, although only thing that those assistants want is to do, is selling their 'magical supplements' to participants.
s15740 said…
1) Why in your opinion do more and more people suffer from orthorexia?
I don’t know why it is happening. As for me it doesn’t matter what to eat, but I need to choose it by myself. On my opinion health is given to us to spend it. When “health bar” going to zero – we are dying. And everyone is choosing how to do this.
2) Do you pay high attention to the quality of food you consume? And if yeas, then do you eat whole-food all the time or you treat yourself and eat something unhealthy from time to time?
No, I don’t pay high attention to the food I eat every day. But as all I have some preferences. I prefer fruits and juice instead of water, I don`t eat sugar at all but sometimes I eat chocolate (only black). When I`m hungry I don`t choose, I just quench the appetite.
3) In what sense can dieting be dangerous? What other “dieting traps” do you know?
The most dangerous is psychological aspect of dieting. As I can hear, when people talk about not healthy food, they can`t accept another opinion, and saintly believe in their truth, looks like fanatism… I`m not judging, it`s only my answer, my opinion … everyone is choosing the way, and it is his way…

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